Meiosis in Bovine Oocytes: Unlocking Competency Signature for Improved Fertility

"Oocyte developmental competence describes the ability of oocytes to successfully complete meiosis, produce a mature fertilisable egg, and support embryo development. Unfortunately, in some mammals, meiosis is error-prone, impairing the generation of competent eggs and causing infertility and embryo death. These errors also hinder the success of Assisted Reproductive Techniques (ARTs) in livestock and humans. In cattle, particularly in dairy cattle, this area is under-researched. This is despite increasing reliance ARTs to increase breeding efficiency, meeting the growing need for cattle-derived products. In collaboration with RAFT Solutions (advanced breeding livestock company), I am in the early stages of a project that aims to investigate how cell division is regulated in cattle oocytes, identifying key regulators of correct division that ensure the production of healthy eggs. This is important to inform future breeding programmes given fertility rates in cattle are declining. Specifically, we aim to reveal markers of competency and non-competency. The potential long-term impact is the improvement efficiency of ARTs and pregnancy rates. This in turn reduces the number of animals needed to replace those of high genetic merit. An added benefit of this would be a reduction in the carbon footprint of the cattle industry. There is very little information published about cell cycle regulation in bovine oocyte meiosis. I will present my protocol development so far, culturing and imaging abattoir-derived bovine oocytes. I will also present my results to date imaging fluorescent transgenes in bovine oocytes to inform on meiosis progression in these cells."