Nutrient Sensing Programs Development and Differentiation of the Bovine Embryo

We aimed to verify whether and to which extent a perturbed nutrient environment during embryo development impact on the capacity of the resultant blastocyst to participate in initial embryo-maternal interactions. For this, in vitro-derived bovine zygotes were exposed to perturbed nutritional environments during the first days of their development. On Day 4 (post fertilization), groups of 5 morulas were transfered to sub-confluent Bovine Endometrial Epithelial Cell (BEEC) monolayers. Embryos were cocultured with BEEC until Day 8, when endometrial cells were recovered for transcriptome analysis. Overall design: Transcriptomes of Bovine Endometrial Epithelial Cells exposed to distinct groups of embryos were sequenced (NGS) on the Illumina HiSeq2000 platform.