IXth International Conference on Boar Semen Preservation 2019

Pig in vitro fertilization: where are we and where do we go? (61193)

Raquel Romar 1 , Sebastián Cánovas 1 , Carmen Matás 1 , Joaquín Gadea 1 , Pilar Coy 1
  1. Department of Physiology, Faculty of VeterinaryMedicine, University of Murcia, Campus Mare Nostrum and IMIB-Arrixaca, Murcia, Spain

The porcine species has a high importance in livestock and in the last decades its biotechnological interest has increased due to its use, among others, in the generation of transgenic animals with potential use in biomedicine and its greater physiological proximity to the human species than other large domestic animals. This development has been paralleled by a significant improvement of different Assisted Reproduction Techniques (ART) in this species. However, the ability to generate animals from embryos produced entirely in vitro is still low and a wide margin for improvement remains. Here we review the procedures, additives, and devices used during pig in vitro fertilization (IVF) , focusing on the main points of each step that has offered the best results in terms of increasing the final efficiency of the system. The lack of standardized protocols and consensus on the parameters to be assessed makes it difficult to compare results across different studies, but some conclusions can be drawn from the literature. In the coming years, we anticipate that more physiological protocols will advance the field of swine IVF, including induction of prefertilization ZP hardening with oviductal fluid, sperm preparation by swim-up methods, increased viscosity through the addition of inert molecules or reproductive biofluids, and incorporation of 3D devices. Here we also reflect on the need to expand the variables on which the efficiency of pig IVF is based, providing new parameters that should be considered in the future to supply more objective and quantitative assessment of new IVF additives or protocols.