Effect of gossypol and its metabolite on in vitro early development of mouse embryos

The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of gossypol and its metabolite on early in vitro mouse embryo development. One hundred and thirty-eight excellent quality mouse blastocysts were randomly assigned to five different treatments. Culture media were supplemented with 10% (V/N) normal steer serum. The embryos were cultured at 37 degrees C with an atmosphere of 5% O(2), 5% CO(2) and 90% N(2), and embryo development was examined and recorded at 12-h intervals for 72 h. The percentage of embryos that developed to expanded blastocyst (92%), hatching blastocyst (84%), and hatched blastocyst (76%) stages in control Ham's F-10 media was not different from that of embryos cultured in media containing 0.1 and 5 mug of gossypol; however, none of the embryos treated with 265 ng of gossypol metabolite (GM) developed beyond the blastocyst stage. A substantial decrease in the percentage of embryos reaching hatching blastocyst (29%) and hatched blastocyst (29%) stages was observed in the embryos cultured with 5.3 ng of GM. At both light and electron microscopic levels, the embryos appeared to be affected even by a lower concentration of GM in vitro. Our results suggest that GM has a much greater potency than the parent gossypol in inhibiting the early development of mouse embryos in vitro.