Study on the Parthenogenetic Activation of Rabbit Oocytes

Parthenogenetic activation of rabbit oocytes was investigated in this study.The cleavage rate of oocytes activated in 7 % ethanol for 5 min(13.0%) were significantly lower than that of oocytes activated in 7 % ethanol(48.1%) or 5 μmol/L ionomycin(92.2%) for 5 min following in 5 mmol/L DMAP for 3 h.The percentage of cleaved oocytes developing to blastocysts(27.1%) was also significantly higher(P 0.05) when oocytes actvated in ionomycin and DMAP,in comparison with oocytes activated in ethanol alone(0%) or ethanol plus DMAP(15.4%).When oocytes were activated using ionomycin and DMAP at 18 h after hCG injection,92.1% of oocytes cleaved and 35.3% of cleaved oocytes developed to blastocysts,which were significantly higher than that of oocytes activated beyond 24 h post-hCG injection(19.0%,4.2%,P 0.05).Three hours was proved to be appropriate for oocytes culturing in DMAP after ionomycin treatment,in which 88.6% of oocytes cleaved and 34.2% of cleaved oocytes developed to blastocysts,which was higher than that of oocytes culturing in DMAP for 1 h(86.1%,28.3%) or 5 h(72.6%,26.4%).Additional electronic pulse to oocytes activated using ionomycin and DMAP did not affect their cleavage rate(83.3%,80.0%) and blastocyst development(30.0%,27.0%).In conclusions,rabbit oocytes can be activated effectively by the treatment of ionomycin and DMAP,and the appropriate age of oocytes for parthenogenetic activation is at 18 h after HCG injection.