WCRB2014 POSTER PRESENTATIONS (1) (335 abstracts)
1College of Veterinary Medicine and Animal Science, São Paulo, Brazil; 2University of Campinas, Campinas, Brazil; 3National Energy and Material Research Center, Campinas, Brazil; 4Achilles Genetics, Garça, Brazil; 5The Pennsylvania State University, State College, USA; 6University of Antwerp, Wilrijk, Belgium.
In the field of single cell analysis, many classical strategies like immunofluorescence and electron microscopy are the fundamental choices. However, these methodologies are time-consuming and do not permit direct identification of specific molecular classes such as lipids. A novel mass spectrometry-based analytical approach has been applied to bovine oocytes and embryo. This new metabolomics-based application uses mass spectrometry imaging (MSI), efficient data processing and multivariate data analysis. Metabolic fingerprinting (MF) was applied for the analysis 2-, 4- and 8-cell embryos. Additionally, a semi-quantitative strategy for sphingomyelin [SM (16:0) Na]+ (m/z 725) and phosphatidylcholine [PC (32:0) Na]+ (m/z 756) was developed, showing that lipid concentration was important in order to elect the best biomarkers. This report demonstrates that the combination between MF strategy along with MSI feature and chemometric analysis can be applied in discriminating embryo stages, characterizing specific biomarkers and relating them to pathways that allow the understanding pre-implantation events during bovine embryo development.