Effect of follistatin on pre‐implantational development of pig parthenogenetic embryos

The present study was designed to explore effects of follistatin (FST) on pre‐implantational development of parthenogenetically activated embryos (PAEs) in pigs. First, we investigated the FST messenger RNA expression level and dynamic FST protein expression patterns in porcine oocytes and PAEs. Then, PAEs were placed in embryo culture medium supplemented with 10 ng/mL of FST‐288, FST‐300, and FST‐315. Next, PAEs were cultured with 0, 1, 10 and 100 ng/mL of FST‐315 protein throughout the in vitro culture (IVC) duration. Further, 10 ng/mL of FST‐300 was added from the start of IVC in which PAEs were treated for 30, 48 and 60 h. The results showed that 1 ng/mL FST‐315 could significantly increase the total cell numbers of blastocyst and trophectoderm cell number in PAEs. Exogenous FST‐300 supplementation could significantly promote the early cleavage divisions and improve the blastocyst formation rate of porcine embryos. FST‐300 appeared to affect early embryonic development before activation of the embryonic genome. In all, the study confirmed for the first time that FST plays a role in promoting early embryonic development in pigs, which differed with different FST subtypes. FST‐300 could facilitate the initial cleavage time and improve the blastocyst formation rate, and FST‐315 could improve the blastocyst quality.