Abstract
We have attempted to sex preimplantation porcine embryos using a polymerase chain reaction (PCR) with the primers made from the SRY (sex-determining region of Y) conserved sequences of mammals.The sense primer was 5'-GTCAAGC GACCCATGAACGC-3'(20 mer) and the antisense primer was 5'-CTGTGCCTCCTG GAAGAATGGC-3'(22 mer).After amplification of male blood samples, the male specific DNA band was detected as a 165-bp fragment.These specific DNA bands were detected in 44-50% of the embryos from 16-cell to blastocyst stage, although the frequencies of positive samples were lower in 2-cell and 4-cell stage embryos. Furthermore, direct sequencing of prepared fragments revealed that there were considerable similarities among the porcine, human, mouse and rabbit sequences.
