Involvement of E-cadherin in early in vitro development of adult and juvenile sheep embryos
Silvia Modina A D , Giovanni G. Leoni B , Valentina Lodde A , Salvatore Naitana C , Silvia Pirani A , Sara Succu C , Fiammetta Berlinguer C and Alberto Maria Luciano A
+ Author Affiliations
- Author Affiliations
A Department of Animal Sciences, University of Milan, Milan 20122, Italy.
B Department of Physiological, Biochemical and Cellular Sciences, University of Sassari, Sassari 07100, Italy.
C Department of Animal Biology, University of Sassari, Sassari 07100, Italy.
D Corresponding author. Email: silvia.modina@unimi.it
Reproduction, Fertility and Development 22(2) 468-477 https://doi.org/10.1071/RD09125
Submitted: 22 May 2009 Accepted: 1 September 2009 Published: 4 January 2010
Abstract
The oocyte-to-embryo transition in mammals depends on maternal proteins and transcripts, which accumulate during oocyte differentiation. The aim of the present study was to examine the role of the junctional proteins β-catenin and E-cadherin during preimplantation in vitro embryo development in sheep, comparing the competence of adult and prepubertal oocytes. We analysed the concentration of β-catenin and E-cadherin in immature and in vitro-matured oocytes. There was a significant increase in E-cadherin concentration after 24 h of in vitro maturation and this was lower in prepubertal oocytes than in adult ones. We therefore studied the expression and distribution of E-cadherin during the major transition from maternal to embryonic genome. E-cadherin distribution and localisation in sheep was age- and developmental-stage dependent and was related to developmental kinetics. In fact, in adults, the majority of embryos showed the proper distribution of E-cadherin just beneath the membrane surfaces of all blastomeres and the percentage of embryos with this distribution increased with the increase in cell number during development. On the contrary, and regardless of their developmental stage, the majority of prepubertal embryos showed an uneven distribution of the protein, often associated with the occurrence of cellular fragmentation. In conclusion, our results suggest that E-cadherin plays a pivotal role during preimplantation embryo growth in sheep and may be one of the possible cytoplasmic factors involved in the reduced developmental competence of prepubertal female gametes.
Additional keywords: oocytes, preimplantation embryo development, prepubertal sheep.
Acknowledgements
The authors thank Dr U. Fascio of the CIMA-Interdepartmental Center of Advanced Microscopy, University of Milan, for his work in confocal image analysis and Mrs. Laura Baraldi Scesi for her excellent technical support in morphological investigation and embryo manipulation. Work supported by PRIN 2005 MIUR and FIRST 2007 UMIL.
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