Placental gene expression in pregnancies established after the transfer of day 7 blastocysts derived from in vitro (IVP), somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT) and in vivo (AI) embryos

Aberrant placental gene expression associated with culture condition and/or deficiencies in transcriptome reprogramming are hypothesized to be the major cause of SCNT and IVP inefficiencies. Therefore, the main objective of this study was to invesitgate the dysregulated genes, molecular pathways and functional alteration in bovine placentas derived from SCNT and IVP pregnancies compared to their AI counterparts Day 7 blastocysts derived from AI, IVP or SCNT were transferred to synchronized cows. The pregnant animals were slaughtered at day 50 of the gestation period and the placentas were then recovered and used for transcriptome analysis using GeneChip bovine genome array