The effects of reproductive status of cats on in vitro maturation of oocytes

Abstract

In Vitro Maturation studies with cat oocytes give quite variable results. Researches have recently reported that the reporductive stage of the cat from which the oocytes have been recovered is critical for in vitro maturation of oocytes (Freisted et al., 2001; Johnston et al., 1989). In recent years, cattle (Khatir et al., 1998), sheep (Armstrong, 2001, goat (Izquerdo, et al., 1999) and swine (Marchal et al., 2001), prepubertal oocytes have been used for IVF programs. In the present study, we aimed to investigate the ability of oocytes from prepubertal cats to mature in vitro and to compare it with that of oocytes recovered at different reproductive status of cats. Meantime, the efficacy of two culture media (TCM 199 and Ham's F-10) was compared.