Quantifying difference in gene expression profile between bovine blastocysts derived by in vitro fertilization and somatic cell nuclear transfer.

Abstract Epigenetic reprogramming intensely occurs in somatic-cell nuclear transfer (SCNT) embryos, which highlights the importance of proper expressions of reprogramming-related genes in SCNT embryos. We here assessed gene expression profiles (GEPs) difference between bovine blastocyst groups derived by in-vitro fertilization (IVF) or SCNT; in SCNT, cumulus cells and ear skin fibroblasts were used for cSCNT and fSCNT blastocysts, respectively. We obtained GEPs of 15 reprogramming-related genes in single blastocysts using multiplex PCR and found a broad range of variations in their GEPs. Weighted root-mean-square deviation (wRMSD) analysis, which calculates the deviation of SCNT blastocysts' GEPs from IVF blastocysts' mean GEP, found a significant difference between IVF and fSCNT and between cSCNT and fSCNT blastocysts ( p