ASCI341 Lab Practicum Final Flashcards
What does a CL feel like when rectally palpating cattle?
Projection coming off of the ovary
What does the antral follicle feel like when rectally palpating cattle?
Fluid-filled, not protruding out
List the methods of reproductive technologies
- Semen sexing
- In vitro production (IVP) of embryos
- Trangenic animal production
- Gene Mapping
- Marker-assisted selection
What are the types of transgenic animal production?
Microinjection
Blastocyte injection of embryonic stem cells
Nuclear transfer / cloning
Spermatogonial germ cell transport
What are the applications for reproductive technologies?
- Propagate superior livestock animals
- Remove or add gene to improve a breed of livestock animals
- Select animals for specific traits very early in life
- Production of proteins which are essential to human life
- Organ transplantation
What is semen sexing?
Sexed semen is characterized by the presence of either X‐ or Y‐chromosome‐bearing sperm, allowing the production of offspring of the desired sex.
What is the main difference between x and y-chromosomes in sexed semen?
Main difference: the x-chromosome has an extra short arm that is absent on the y-chromosome.
Y-bearing chromosome: negative charge
X-bearing chromosome: positive charge
How does sexed semen work?
Pass sperm through a laser that excites vital dye. X-chromosome will light up more because they have more total DNA that will pick up more dye)
As sperm pass through the system individually. It gives sperm charge based on the light given off. It then passes through a magnetic field that separates them.
What is the advantage and disadvantage of semen sexing?
Advantage –> dead sperm pass through, which purifies sperm
Disadvantage –> expensive ($500K - 1 million)
What is the success rate of semen sexing?
95%
What is in vitro fertilization of embryos?
- Mix mature oocytes with sperm
- Develop embryos to specific stage and transplant into live animal
How do you superovulate a donor cow for in vitro embryo fertilization?
- Porcine FSH treatment –> promotes more follicle development
What are the steps of in vitro fertilization?
- Synchronization of recipients with donor
- Superovulation of donor
- Inseminate donor with semen from genetically superior bull
- Recovery and identification of embryos
- Transfer viable embryos into synchronized recipients
What stage of embryo is commonly collected during embryo flushing process?
Usually aiming for compact blastocyst stage (would be located in uterine horn)
What is transvaginal oocyte aspiration?
Newer technology –> long ultrasound probe inserted into the repro tract. Palpate through the rectum and pin the ovary against the vaginal wall. The probe has a needle pushing the needle through the vaginal wall into the ovary. Will be able to aspirate fluid out of follicles that contain eggs/oocytes. Connected to an ultrasound machine that has a targeting vector on it.
What is the advantage of transvaginal oocyte aspiration?
Separate oocytes out and can fertilize with sperm from different males
What is pronuclear injection/microinjection?
Foreign DNA is injected into pronuclei.
The oocyte is reduced to a haploid state; sperm has haploid complementary chromosomes. At this point, we perform a pronuclear injection.
What is syngamy?
Fusion of pronuclei
What order of membranes does the fine polled glass pipette pass through in microinjection?
Zona pellucida –> plasma membrane –> cytoplasm –> pronucleus (zygote)
Is pronuclear injection/microinjection more successful in mice or livestock species? Why?
Mouse = 10% success rate. Much less efficient in livestock.
Mouse embryo –> pronuclei are visible under light microscopy
Livestock embryos –> have much more lipid, so you can’t visualize pronuclei.
What are the advantages and disadvantages of pronuclear injection?
Advantage: if we want to over-express DNA, we can generally do it in one generation
Disadvantage: Gene incorporated into genome RANDOMLY and can cause damage. A lot less efficient, and end up killing a lot in the process.
When does blastocyst injection of embryonic stem cells occur?
It occurs at a much lower stage in the development (days 7-9 of embryo development)
Embryo classified with blastocoel (cells inside zona pellucida)
What do inner cell masses form?
Forms embryo
What do trophoblasts form?
Placenta = houses developing fetus during gestation