P-115: Melatonin Increases Developmental Rate of In Vitro Mouse Somatic Cell Nuclear

Background: The beneficial effect of supplementing culture medium with melatonin has been reported during in vitro embryo development of species such as mouse, bovine and porcine. However, the effect of melatonin on the mouse somatic cell nuclear transfer remained unknown. Materials and Methods: In this study, we assessed the effects of various concentrations of melatonin (10-6 to 10-12 M) on the in vitro development of mouse somatic cell nuclear transfer embryos for 96 hours. Embryos cultured without melatonin were used as control. Results: There was no significant difference in cleavage rates between the groups supplemented with melatonin, DMSO and control. The rate of development to blastocyst stage was significantly higher in the group supplemented with 10 -12 M melatonin compared to the control group (p<0.05). Conclusion: Thus, our data demonstrated that adding melatonin to pre-implantation mouse nuclear transfer embryo can accelerate blastocyst formation.