The use of Royal Jelly as a Replacement of Fetal Bovine Serum in In Vitro Production of Goat Embryo with Emphasis on Apoptosis Related Genes

The present study was conducted to investigate the effect of different concentrations of royal jelly as a fetal bovine serum replacement on in vitro embryo production of goat oocytes and the gene expression involved in apoptosis. In vitro maturation (IVM) of oocyte was performed in the presence of control (10% FBS), 10 mg/ml RJ (without FBS), 5% FBS and 5 mg/ml RJ, 2.5% FBS and 7.5 mg/ml RJ, 7.5% FBS and 2.5 mg/ml RJ. Nuclear statusof matured oocyte and mRNA abundance of selected genes were evaluated following 24 h of IVM. Following the IVM, fertilization and embryo culture were carried out in all groups and embryonic development was examined. Our data suggested that the number of oocytes at metaphase II stage, cleavage and blastocyst stage of the embryo were gradually increased followed by the dose of royal jelly gradually increased in the maturation medium. The addition of 10 mg/ml royal jelly to the maturation media was significantly increased (P <0.05) maturation rate (91.35%) of goat oocyte, cleavage (83.39%) and blastocyst formation (30.18%) compared with the control groups (71.31%, 62.50% and 21.42%, respectively). By increasing of royal jelly concentrations, the mRNA transcript of the BCL2 gene was increased, while transcript abundance of BAX was significantly decreased. BCL2/BAX ratio has also been significantly increased (P <0.05) by increasing of royal jelly concentrations in the maturation media. However, relative gene expression of CASPAS3 gene was not significantly different between treatments. It seems that the gradual increase of royal jelly as a replacement of FBS in the maturation media had a desirable effect on oocyte maturation and the embryo development condition of caprine oocyte.