Accelerated follicle growth during the culture of isolated caprine preantral follicles is detrimental to follicular survival and oocyte meiotic resumption

This study investigated the effect of androstenedione (A4) alone or in association with different concentrations of bovine recombinant FSH on the IVC of isolated goat preantral follicles. Follicles were mechanically isolated from ovarian tissue and cultured for 18 days in α–minimum essential medium supplemented or not with A4 (10 ng/mL) alone or in association with fixed (A4 + FixFSH: 100 ng/mL) or sequential (A4 + SeqFSH: Day 0, 100 ng/mL; Day 6, 500 ng/mL; Day 12, 1000 ng/mL) concentrations of FSH. After 18 days, the oocytes were recovered for IVM and fluorescence analysis. At Day 18 of culture, only A4 + SeqFSH treatment showed a lower (P 0.05). In summary, this study found that accelerated follicle growth negatively impacted the morphology of caprine preantral follicle cultured in vitro. In addition, the association of androstenedione with increasing concentration of FSH was detrimental to follicular survival and oocyte meiotic resumption.