Transcript abundance, glutathione and apoptosis levels differ between porcine oocytes collected from prepubertal and cyclic gilts.

It is well known that puberty has a strong impact on oocyte developmental competence in vitro; however, the reason for this phenomenon at the cellular level has not been clarified yet. It is hypothesized that cytoplasmic maturation is responsible for oocyte quality and may be impaired in prepubertal gilts. Previous results on mitochondrial DNA copy number and mitochondria and cortical granule distribution showed that cytoplasmic maturation is a complex trait and should include multithreaded analysis. Therefore, the aim of the present research was to analyze the transcript abundance of developmentally important genes (BMP15, GDF9, GSTA2, ATP5A1, EEF1A1, BAX, BCL2) followed by investigation of the glutathione and apoptosis level in oocytes of prepubertal and cyclic gilts. We found differences in relative transcript abundance of BMP15 and GDF9 genes after IVM, whereas different concentrations of glutathione were noted before IVM (5.3 vs. 2.9 pmol, respectively). The glutathione level was equalized after IVM (10.3 vs. 9.1 pmol), whereas the incidence of apoptosis remained similar before (3.9% vs. 1.1%) and after IVM (4.5% vs. 1.9%) being higher in prepubertal oocytes. A potential impact of gilt puberty on oocyte quality has been therefore masked by the significant effect of IVM. Because the maternal effect genes, BMP15 and GDF9, play key roles in regulation of folliculogenesis and oocyte-cumulus interaction, their upregulation in oocytes of cyclic gilts may result in increased developmental competence. On the basis of findings from this and our previous research, we suggest that the reduced quality of oocytes from prepubertal females is a complex phenomenon and is not related to a single marker trait.