Boric acid supplementation promotes the development of in vitro-produced mouse embryos by related pluripotent and antioxidant genes.

Boric acid (BA) is an important mineral for plants, animals and humans that assists metabolic function and has both positive and negative effects on biological systems. The present study aimed to investigate the effects of different concentrations of BA added to the culture media, the quality and in vitro development potential of mouse embryos. Superovulated C57Bl6/6j female mice were sacrificed ∼18 hours after human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG) injection. Single-cell-stage embryos were collected from the oviduct, divided into experiment groups and cultured in embryo medium with supplemented BA+ in 5% CO₂ at 37 °C until 96 hours at the blastocyst stage. The blastocyst development rates of 0, 1.62 × 10^-1, 1.62 × 10^-2, 1.62 × 10^-3 and 1.62 × 10^-4 µM BA were 51.52%, 73.47%, 77.36% and 81.13%, respectively. The in vitro development rates were significantly higher in the 1.62 × 10^-3 (p < 0.05) and 1.62 × 10^-4 µM BA groups than in the control group (p < 0.001). These results indicated that low BA doses influenced embryo development by positively affecting in vitro development rates, embryo cell numbers, biochemical parameters and development at the molecular level by pluripotent and antioxidant genes. Therefore, BA seems to play an important role on in vitro embryo development.