Evaluation of bovine embryo quality based on gene expression profiling using whole-transcriptome amplification

This study aimed to develop a method to evaluate the quality of bovine in vitro fertilized (IVF) embryos based on gene expression profiling via whole-transcriptome amplification. The expression of 11 developmentally important genes in individual bovine in vivo-derived (IVD) and IVF embryos were examined. Gene expression profiling was conducted by classifying the expression level of each gene in individual embryos as low, medium, or high. The IVF group had a higher (P < 0.01) proportion of embryos with low expression of SOX2, NANOG, and FGF4. In addition, a correlation analysis between the expression levels of each gene in individual embryos demonstrated that the relationship between gene expression differed with respect to IVD and IVF embryos. Our results suggest that the expression profiling of developmentally important genes using IVD embryos as normal controls could be a useful indicator for evaluating the quality of bovine IVF embryos.