Oviduct epithelial cell co-culture of early porcine embryos.

One- to 16-cell porcine embryos were cultured in either Whittens medium supplemented with bovine serum albumin and fetal calf serum (WM) or in the same medium with porcine oviduct epithelial cell co-culture (WM-Poec). All stages of embryos cultured in WM-POEC had higher cell counts after 144-168 h of development than did embryos in WM. There was however, no significant difference in blastocyst formation rate of embryos cultured in WM-POEC over those cultured in WM. A high proportion of the embryos entering culture at the 1-2-cell were able to pass the 4-cell block stage in both WM and WM-POEC, 81% and 77%, respectively. In both media, most of the 1-2-cell embryos arrested their development at the compacted morula stage and failed to blastulate while embryos initiating culture at the 4- and 8-16-cell embryos formed blastocysts in culture at a rate of 80-90%.