107 Selecting donors for ovum pickup using anti-Mullerian hormone in cattle: a potential biomarker for donor selection

Selecting suitable donors is crucial for better outcomes in an ovum pickup (OPU), in vitro embryo production, and embryo transfer programme. While the foremost criteria for selecting donors are milk production and other commercially important characteristics, it is also worth having an idea of a follicular pool to harvest more oocytes from a donor as higher oocyte recovery increases per donor embryo production. Due to the difficulty associated with carrying an ultrasound machine, donor selection is often made based on only per-rectal examination, which lacks accuracy and may lead to wrong selection of donors. Thus arises a need to develop an alternate marker of follicular pool in the donors to ease donor selection. Anti-Mullerian hormone (AMH) is an endocrine marker of antral follicle count of cattle (Cardoso et al. 2018 Anim. Reprod. 15, 12–16). Thus, AMH has the potential to become a tool for donor selection. The present study is envisaged to understand the relationship between serum AMH level and donor oocyte recovery. Blood samples were collected during the luteal and follicular phase from 49 Bos indicus cows (Gir, Kankrej, Red Sindhi, Sahiwal, and Tharparkar), regularly used for OPU. Serum was separated and stored at −20°C till further analysis. The AMH levels were analysed using ELISA (Cloud Clone Corp.). The mean of AMH levels in luteal and follicular phases for each animal was taken for further analysis and the animals were categorized into high, moderate, and low oocyte recovery groups based on the mean of oocyte recovery per OPU (14.7) and standard deviation (8.1). The animals with an average oocyte recovery of more than 22.8 (>mean + standard deviation) were kept in the high group (n = 8); animals with average oocyte recovery of less than 6.6 (<mean – standard deviation) were kept in the low group (n = 5); animals with average oocyte recovery in the range of 22.8 to 6.6 were kept in the moderate group (n = 36). Descriptive statistics were calculated for AMH level in each group, and means were represented as mean + standard error of the mean. Means were compared between high, moderate, and low groups by Student’s t-test, and were considered to differ significantly if P < 0.05. The value of AMH in luteal and follicular phase of the donors was also compared to check if there is any difference between these two phases. The mean AMH concentrations (pg/mL) were 1591.1 ± 387.1, 2793.7 ± 355.1, and 2864.8 ± 378.3 in the low, moderate, and high group, respectively. The AMH values obtained in the high group were significantly higher than the low group (P = 0.04). No significant difference (P = 0.88) in AMH values was observed between the samples collected during luteal (2710.4 ± 289.3) and follicular phase (2654.7 ± 261.8) indicating that samples can be collected at any point of oestrous cycle. The lowest, mean, and highest AMH values obtained in the study were 618.6, 2682.6, and 10632.3, respectively indicating a distinct contrast. The results indicate AMH positively correlates with oocyte recovery in OPU in cattle, suggesting its use as a potential biomarker for better donor selection.