Effects of Insulin-like Growth Factor-1 on Development of Somatic Cell Cloned Bovine Embryos

The aim of this study was to assess the effect of insulin-like growth factor-1 (IGF-1) on the developmental competence of somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT) bovine embryos. First, the expression levels of IGF-1 receptor (IGF-1R) and IGF-1 in the oocytes and embryos of different developmental stages were examined. Then the effects of exogenous IGF-1 on the development of SCNT embryos were evaluated both in vitro and in vivo. The results showed that IGF-1 was not expressed in both IVF and SCNT embryos, whereas IGF-1R could be detected throughout the preimplantation stages in both protein and mRNA levels. Also, exogenous IGF-1 had no obvious impact on the developmental competence of IVF embryos. However, it could improve the developmental competence of SCNT embryos in terms of blastocyst developmental rate (31.3% vs. 43.2%, p < 0.05), total cell number (93.0 ± 9.9 vs. 101.0 ± 9.8, p < 0.05), ratio of inner cell mass (ICM) to trophectoderm (TE) (0.29 ± 0.006 vs. 0.39 ± 0.005, p < 0.05), and apoptosis index in day 7 blastocysts (2.5 ± 0.22 vs. 8.7 ± 0.41, p < 0.05) compared to the control group. Although no statistical difference in pregnancy rate and birth rate was observed after embryo transfer, there was an upward tendency in both examined terms in the IGF-1-supplemented group when compared with the control group. In conclusion, the present study showed that supplementing exogenous IGF-1 to the culture medium has an obvious positive effect on the development competence of SCNT embryos.