Differential Gene Expression of In Vitro Culture Mature Oocytes in Swine

Several layers of cumulus cells surround the oocyte in the antral follicle and play an important support and regulation role in oocytes development and maturation via the intercellular communications and interactions between oocytes and cumulus cells. To investigate the function of cumulus cells during in vitro maturation of porcine oocytes and the gene expression profiles between cumulus-oocyte complexes (COCs) and naked oocytes (NOs), we used suppression subtractive hybridization (SSH) to identify potential genes. Utilizing mRNAs from in vitro maturation oocytes of porcine, we constructed a SSH cDNA library form COCs as the tester and NOs as the driver. The SSH cDNA library was then screened using reverse northern blot. Reverse northern analysis showed that 13 genes were differentially expressed in COCs compared to NOs by real time reverse transcriptase -polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR).