Cysteamine or β-mercaptoethanol added to a defined maturation medium improves blastocyst formation of porcine oocytes after intracytoplasmic sperm injection

The present study was carried out to investigate the effect of adding 100 μM cysteamine (Cys) or 100 μM β-mercaptoethanol (β-ME) to a defined maturation medium on in vitro maturation (IVM), and fertilization and developmental competence of in vitro matured porcine oocytes following intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI). The two control media for IVM culture were modified TCM199 containing 10% (v/v) porcine follicular fluid (pFF) or 0.05% (w/v) polyvinyl alcohol (PVA), and Cys or β-ME was supplemented to the PVA-control medium. There was no significant difference in the proportions of in vitro matured oocytes among the four treatment groups (94.5–98.4%). The percentages of pronuclear formation (51.0–64.2%) after ICSI were also not significantly different among the four groups. The cleavage rate (72.8%) in the oocytes treated with Cys showed no significant difference compared with those of the two control media containing pFF (72.2%) or PVA (61.5%), but was higher (P < 0.05) than that in the oocytes treated with β-ME (56.3%). However, the rates of blastocyst formation of Cys (36.7%), β-ME (27.1%) and pFF (31.4%) were higher (P < 0.05) than that using the control medium containing PVA (15.6%). The mean cell number of blastocysts ranged from 42 to 52 among the four groups, without significant differences. In conclusion, the addition of Cys or β-ME to a defined maturation medium enhanced blastocyst formation after ICSI, to a level similar to that achieved by adding pFF.