Sucrose-exposed chemically enucleated mouse oocytes support blastocyst development of reconstituted embryos

This study was carried out to test the ability of sucrose-exposed chemically enucleated mouse oocytes to support the development of reconstituted embryos in vitro. Cumulus-enclosed germinal-vesicle-stage mouse oocytes were matured in vitro to metaphase I stage and were chemically enucleated with 50 microg mL(-1) etoposide in tissue culture medium 199. The chemically enucleated oocytes were grouped into two groups. Group I was exposed to 0.75 M sucrose and group II was not exposed to sucrose. The zonae pellucidae of the chemically enucleated oocytes were removed with acid Tyrode's solution (pH 2.7). They were then aggregated into couplets with karyoplasts from pronuclear-stage embryos using phytohemagglutinin-P. The couplets were electrically fused to form reconstituted embryos. The reconstituted embryos were activated with 7% ethanol and cultured in vitro in simplex optimisation medium to test their developmental ability to the blastocyst stage. Some of the reconstituted embryos that developed to the blastocyst stage were used for chromosome counts to test their ploidy. The results of the present study showed that chemically enucleated oocytes exposed to sucrose supported the development of reconstituted embryos to the blastocyst stage (21.5%), whereas those not exposed to sucrose did not. The chromosome counts showed that the reconstituted embryos had normal ploidy (40 chromosomes). It is concluded that sucrose exposure improves the quality of chemically enucleated mouse oocytes. Thus they can be used as recipients for mouse embryo cloning and nucleocytoplasmic interaction studies.