The effect of purmorphamine on oocyte maturation and expression of histon deacetylase genes in development of sheep parthenogenetic embryos

Purmorphamine is a synthetic Sonic Hedgehog pathway agonist, which plays a critical role in the regulation activity of receptors and transcription factors. In this study, the effect of purmorphamine on sheep oocytes maturation, and the rate expression of histon deacetylase on sheep parthenogenetic embryos development were considered. Sheep ovaries were obtained from East Poria local slaughterhouse at Varamin in 1392 and cumulus-oocyte complexes were cultured in the medium containing 250 and 500 ng purmorphamine, and without purmorphamine as a control. After 22 hours maturation, for evaluating nuclear and cytoplasmic oocyte maturation, oocytes were denuded from cumulus cells and stained with Hoechst and cell tracker blue. Also a group of oocytes entered the parthenogenetic stage and were cultured to the blastocyst stage. The quantative rate expression of histon deacetylase I, II, III were examined by Real-Time PCR (qPCR). In this study, In 500 ng purmorphamine, though it had no significant effect on nuclear oocyte maturation, it increased cytoplasmic maturation. Also percentage of zygotes and blastocysts per cleavage in purmorphamine treated groups was not significantly different from control group. qPCR analysis showed that in 250 ng purmorphamine the histone deacetylase II-III and histone deacetylase I rate expression were higher and lower than control group, respectively. According to the results, purmorphamine had positive influences on the cytoplasmic maturation.It seems that 500 ng concentration of Purmorphamine induces cytoplasmic oocyte maturation and is a good agent for oocyte cytoplasmic maturation in vitro.