1999 Volume 45 Issue 5 Pages 315-320
Buffalo ovaries were collected from a slaughter house and cumulus oocyte complexes were aspirated from follicles 2-6 mm in diameter. A portable CO2 incubator and a CR1aa medium were used for in vitro production of embryos. In the first experiment, numbers of follicles and oocytes per ovary were counted, and classified according to the appearance of the cumulus cells. In the second experiment, in vitro fertilization and cultivation of buffalo oocytes matured in vitro were carried out using semen from three different bulls, which had different sperm motilities (Bull 1: 20%, Bull 2: 60% and Bull 3: 15%, respectively). In the third experiment, the cleavage and transferable embryos of fertilized oocytes from denuded oocytes, and oocytes with intact cumulus cell layers were compared. The percentages of good, fair and poor quality oocytes were 60.9%, 17.8% and 21.4%, respectively. The rates of cleavage and transferable embryos were significantly higher after incubation with semen from Bull 2 (81% and 40.2%) than those after incubation with semen from Bulls 1 (52% and 13.5%, p<0.05 and p<0.01) and 3 (15.8% and 0%, p<0.01). The rates of cleavage and transferable embryos were significantly higher (p<0.01) for oocytes with an intact cumulus than for oocytes without cumulus cells at fertilization.
