Fig. 1.
Effects of follistatin supplementation during IVC1 on developmental progression of early bovine embryos produced with sex-sorted semen. Presumptive zygotes produced with unsorted or sorted semen (bull A, B and C) were cultured with or without 10 ng/ml recombinant human follistatin for 72 h, then 8–16- cell embryos were isolated, washed and cultured in fresh media without follistatin until d7 (n = 4 replicates, n = 25–30 zygote/group). Effects of follistatin on (A) early cleavage, (B) total cleavage, (C) development to 8–16 cell stage and (D) d7 blastocyst rate were determined. Data are expressed as mean ± SEM. Values with different superscripts across indicate treatment significant differences (P < 0.05).