In vitro culture of ovine embryos up to gastrulating stages

Developmental failures occurring shortly after blastocyst hatching from the zona pellucida constitute a major cause of pregnancy losses in both humans and farm ungulates. The developmental events occurring following hatching in ungulates include the proliferation and maturation of extra-embryonic membranes –trophoblast and hypoblast- and the formation of a flat embryonic disc, similar to that found in humans, that initiates gastrulation prior to implantation. Unfortunately, our understanding of these key processes for embryo survival is limited because current culture systems are unable to sustain ungulate embryo development beyond hatching. Herein, we report a culture system that recapitulates most developmental landmarks that characterize ovine development up to gastrulating stages: trophoblast maturation, hypoblast migration, embryonic disc formation, Rauber´s layer removal, epiblast polarization and mesoderm differentiation. In this dataset we compare the transcriptional profile of ovine day (D) 14 in vitro cultured embryos and embryonic day (E) 11 and 12.5 in vivo derived embryos by RNA-seq. Overall design: RNA-seq analysis was performed in 3 ovine whole embryos in vitro-produced and cultured until D14, 3 E11 and 3 E12.5 in vivo-derived embryos.