Gold nano particles improve the embryonic developmental competency of artificially activated mouse oocytes

Currently, artificial oocyte activation has attracted wide attention in assisted reproduction due to extensive range of applications particularly, in somatic cell nuclear transfer and deriving pluripotent stem cell lines and is unique model to determine the role of paternal genome. Numbers of artificial activating agents have been used extensively to induce the oocytes activation, however; embryos developmental competency of artificially activated oocytes is still very low. In the present study, we determined the functional impact of strontium chloride supplementation with gold nano particles (AuNPs) in artificial oocytes activation and subsequent embryonic development. Oocytes were activated artificially in the culture medium containing 250 nM AuNPs with constant concentration of strontium Chloride 10 mM. We found that adding 250 nM AuNPs with constant concentration of strontium chloride (10 mM for 3 h) in culture medium improves the proportion of embryos reaching to the morula and blastocyst-stage from 61% and 42% (controls) to and 58% (250 nM AuNPs) respectively. In addition, foster mothers receiving AuNPs-treated embryos showed more implantation percentage and pregnancy rate relative to females who received control embryos. Finally, embryos-treated with 250 nM AuNPs concentration showed no toxic effect in term of blastocyst development. Collectively, our findings suggest the potential role of AuNPs in early embryonic development for mouse oocytes that activated artificially, and provide new insights in the field of animal biotechnology and assisted reproduction in humans.