Effect of royal jelly on gene expression of antioxidant enzymes in in vitro maturation and embryo development of goat oocytes

This research was conducted to investigate the effect of different concentrations of royal jelly (RJ) as an antioxidant source on in vitro maturation of goat oocytes. Goat ovaries were collected from a local abattoir. Cumulus-oocyte-complexes (COCs) were recovered from antral follicles. The COCs were placed in maturation medium and were reached to MII stage after 24 hours. The results indicated that the increasing of royal jelly concentration in the maturation media was significantly increased maturation rate of oocytes from control (54 ± 0%) to 20 mg/mL group (93 ± 0.5%). Also, the higher RJ concentrations were associated with increased cleavage (62.5 ± 2.64% to 85.6 ± 3.78%) and blastocyst rate (15.4 ± 2.26% to 38.6 ± 3.42%) from the RJ0 to the RJ20 group. Addition of RJ was significantly (P