Pilot study on epigenetic analyses of embryos

Applicants

Carlos Guerrero Bosagna (EBC, Uppsala University, main applicant), Ylva Sjunnesson (KV, SLU, co-applicant).

Abstract

SLU has currently the only research laboratory for in vitro production (IVP) of bovine and porcine embryos in Sweden. The use of in vitro models has been a successful tool for studying the impact of different factors on early development (from oocyte maturation until the blastocyst stage) with several finished and ongoing studies that investigate the impact of different factors on the outcome in the offspring. The method includes collection of immature oocytes of cows and sows from slaughterhouse ovaries followed by maturation, fertilization and culture in vitro.

This methodology may greatly impact epigenetic research to understand epigenomic programming in mammalian embryos. It is well-know that in mammals an epigenetic reprograming period occurs, which starts with global demethylation immediately after embryo fertilization followed by re-methylation triggered at the time of blastocyst formation. However, this has not been investigated in detail in cows or pigs.

Embryos will be produced by IVP and then frozen. Once a suitable number of embryos are collected from both cattle and pigs at different developmental stages, we will proceed to apply Genotype-by-Sequencing (GBS) and Methylated-DNA-Immunoprecipitation (MeDIP) to construct a library based on these DNA samples. The establishment of epigenetic analyses of early embryos from cows and pigs in Uppsala will be of great importance to Swedish research and the close cooperation between the laboratory units at SLU and Uppsala University will promote a platform for high quality research, with the potential to open new exciting research avenues in the field of developmental biology.