Gentamicin Has No Significant Adverse Effect on Porcine Embryo Development In Vitro

Abstract

The composition of the culture medium affects the viability and developmental competency of porcine embryos produced in vitro. Previous transcriptional profiling has identified areas of improvement in the formulation of these media. Xenobiotic metabolism-related genes were upregulated in in vitro-cultured porcine embryos compared to their in vivo-derived counterparts, and the antibiotic gentamicin is a component of porcine embryo culture media. While effective against a broad spectrum of bacteria, gentamicin has been observed to be toxic to rat embryos and may induce changes in gene expression in cell culture. The objective of this study was to determine if gentamicin has an adverse effect on the development of porcine embryos. After in vitro fertilization, presumptive zygotes were placed in either MU4 medium containing gentamicin or MU4 medium without gentamicin. No difference was detected in blastocyst development, total cell number, apoptotic index, or expression of 3 selected genes between embryos cultured with or without gentamicin (p > 0.05). Therefore, porcine embryos are able to tolerate the presence of 10 μg/mL gentamicin without significant impacts on blastocyst development rate, total cell number, or apoptosis.