Effect of melatonin treatment on developmental potential of somatic cell nuclear-transferred mouse oocytes in vitro

The beneficial effect of supplementing culture medium with melatonin has been reported during in vitro embryo development of species such as mouse, bovine and porcine. However, the effect of melatonin on mouse somatic cell nuclear transfer remains unknown. In this study, we assessed the effects of various concentrations of melatonin (10-6 to 10-12 M) on the in vitro development of mouse somatic cell nuclear transfer embryos for 96 h. Embryos cultured without melatonin were used as control. There was no significant difference in cleavage rates between the groups supplemented with melatonin, dimethyl sulphoxide (DMSO) and the control. The rate of development to blastocyst stage was significantly higher in the group supplemented with 10-12 M melatonin compared with the control group (P < 0.05). Thus, our data demonstrated that adding melatonin to pre-implantation mouse nuclear-transferred embryos can accelerate blastocyst formation.