Transfer of porcine embryos after 3 days of in vitro culture

Two experiments were conducted to determine the viability of porcine embryos transferred after long-term in vitro culture. In Exp. 1, four-cell embryos were kept in culture for 120 h. Embryos that were exposed to fresh culture medium every 12 h survived better than embryos kept in the same medium throughout the culture period. In Exp. 2, four- and eight-cell embryos were cultured in vitro for 72 h before transfer to estrus-induced recipient gilts. Each gilt received, on average, 19 embryos. If recipients were synchronous with donors 3/32 (9%) recipients remained pregnant with an average of 4.0 +/- .6 viable young. If the sexual cycle of the recipients was 24 h behind that of the donors the pregnancy rate was 18/34 (53%) with 4.4 +/- .5 viable young. Average embryo survival rate for the two groups was 1.8 and 12.5%, respectively. A 24-hourly medium replacement during the in vitro culture period had no significant effect on transfer results. When transferring freshly collected blastocysts, pregnancy rate, number of viable young and survival rate of embryos were 6/10 (60%), 7.8 +/- 1.4, and 23.9% for synchronous recipients and 7/10 (70%), 9.3 +/- 1.8, and 32.9% for asynchronous recipients, respectively. Recipients with very high plasma progesterone levels or numerous follicular cysts at the time of transfer were less likely to remain pregnant than others.