Effects of recombinant AMH during oocyte maturation in spotted steed Hemibarbus maculatus

Abstract Anti-Mullerian hormone (AMH) has been suggested to play critical roles in male sex differentiation and testicular development among different vertebrates. However, growing evidence suggests that it also plays a key role in female reproduction. In the present study, we cloned the Amh gene and examined its expression pattern in a teleost species, spotted steed. Furthermore, recombinant AMH was produced and incubated with adult ovarian fragments of spotted steed in vitro. The results showed that the open reading frame (ORF) of spotted steed Amh is 1671 bp in length, encoding 556 amino acids. qPCR and western blot analysis showed that Amh had the highest expression during the vitellogenesis and maturation stages. Using recombinant AMH, we further showed that AMH significantly increased germinal vesicle breakdown (GVBD) rates, Cyclin B expression and maturation-promoting factor (MPF) level in vitro. In addition, treatment of oocytes with AMH decreased Cyp19a1a expression and E2 production. These results suggested that AMH may promote oocyte maturation in spotted steed.