Table 3.

The effects of various concentrations of SCP on in vitro development of cloned rabbit embryos.

Treatments	No. embryos cultured (replicates)	No. (%)cleavage	No. (%) morula	No. (%) Blastocyst
NT	50 (3)	34 (68.0)^a	13 (26.0)^a	7 (14.0)^a
NTSCP50	32 (3)	27 (84.4)^a	10 (31.3)^a	3 (9.4)^a
NTSCP250	86 (3)	70 (81.4)^a	58 (67.4)^bc	35 (40.7)^b
NTSCP500	32 (3)	28 (87.5)^a	13 (40.6)^ab	7 (21.9)^ab
PAR	66 (3)	61 (92.4)^b	58 (87.9)^c	54 (81.8)^c

^a–c

Within a column, values without a common superscript differed (P<0.05).

Each datum was derived from three independent replicates. Oocytes were collected from superovulated ova donors at 10–12 h post human choriogonadotropin (hCG) injection (hpi) and used for SCNT. Cultured fibroblasts were used as nuclear donors. Fused NT embryos were activated by electric pulses and a chemical combination of 6-DMAP and CHX for 1 h. Cloned embryos were then treated without HDACi agents (NT) or treated with different concentrations of SCP (i.e. 50, 250, or 500 nM) for 6 h and arranged for development in vitro. The rates of cleavage, morula and blastocyst were evaluated and compared with that of parthenogenetically activated (PAR) embryos. The percentage of embryonic development was calculated based upon the number of cultured embryos.