earticle

영어

Parthenogenetic embryo without contribution of paternal genome would be terminated during early gestation period in pigs. Therefore, the present study was designed to analyze the characteristics of parthenogenetic fetuses to identify the possible causes for fetal degeneration during early gestation period. In brief, the pig parthenogenetic fetuses were produced by embryo transfer of parthenogenetic embryos into surrogates. Then, the pig parthenogenetic fetuses were recovered at day 26 and 35 of gestation and conducted to analyze histological characteristics. In results, the parthenogenetic pig fetuses were generated and recovered at day 26 and 35 successfully. The size of parthenogenetic fetuses (n=15, 1.5 cm) recovered at day 26 of gestation were significantly smaller than normal fetuses (n=18, 2.0 cm) while the weights were comparable (0.36 vs. 0.51 g). The size and weight of parthenogenetic fetuses (n=9, 1.8 cm, 0.47 g) recovered at day 35 of gestation were significantly lower than normal fetuses (n=3, 3.67 cm, 3.71 g). The paraffin-embedded sections from parthenogenetic fetus at day 26 showed normal formation of major organs while parthenogenetic fetus at day 35 showed terminated and degenerated formation of major organs. Additionally, the apoptotic cell number of parthenogenetic fetuses (4.4) recovered at day 35 of gestation were significantly (p<0.05) higher than normal fetuses (2.0) while the result of day 26 of gestation showed comparable (1.8 vs. 2.0). Conclusively, our results can suggest that increased apoptosis in fetal tissues also leads to abnormal development of parthenogenetic pig fetus resulting delayed development until day 26 and then termination and degeneration from day 36.