Reproduction Abstracts

Despite being transcriptionally silent,1 mature spermatozoa contain small amounts of RNA comprising various classes and although, de novo translation of spermatozoal RNA has been demonstrated,2 the role of these RNAs is currently unclear. However, looking across species boundaries and comparing the RNA profiles of sperm from a number of mammals may give insights into their function in the process of reproduction, including potentially post-fertil...

Introduction: Genome-wide analysis of DNA methylation in mammalian preimplantation embryos, particularly at the single embryo level, will be of particular use for assessing the epigenetic status and health of in vitro-derived embryos, including humans. To date, single embryo DNA methylation analysis has been limited to a small number of genes (<5). In this study we used an adaptation of reduced representation bisulfite sequencing (RRBS) to i) perform genome-wide a...

Reproductive ageing in females is associated with reduced oocyte maturation potential and developmental competence. Oocyte chromatin configuration and metabolism, have recently been established as correlates of oocyte developmental competence in a number of species. Here, we have evaluated the effect of reproductive ageing on oocyte chromatin morphology and amino acid turnover in germinal vesicle (GV)-staged, ovine oocytes.Cumulus–oocyte complexes w...