Role of ghrelin on the fertilization, early embryo development and implantation periods

LUQUE EM; TORRES PJ; DE LOREDO N; VINCENTI LM; STUTZ G; SANTILLÁN ME; RUIZ RD; FIOL DE CUNEO M; MARTINI AC

REPRODUCTION

BIOSCIENTIFICA LTD

Lugar: Bristol; Año: 2014 vol. 148 p. 159 - 167

1470-1626

In order to clarify the physiological role of ghrelin on gestation, we evaluated the effects of exogenous ghrelin (2 or 4 nmol/animal/day) or antagonist (6 nmol/animal/day of (D-Lys3)GHRP-6) administration on mice fertilization, early-embryo development and implantation periods. Three experiments were performed, treating female mice with ghrelin or its antagonist: 1) from one week previous to copulation up to 12 hours later, sacrificing mice at Day 18 of gestation; 2) since ovulation induction until 80 hours later, when we retrieved the embryos from oviducts/uterus and 3) from Day 3 of gestation to Day 7 (peri-implantation), sacrificing mice at Day 18. In experiments 1 and 3, the antagonist and/or the highest dose of ghrelin significantly increased the percentage of atrophied fetuses and that of females exhibiting this finding or a higher amount of corpora lutea compared to fetuses (nCL/nF) (Experiment 3: higher nCL/nF-atrophied fetuses: ghrelin 4: 71.4%-71.4% and antagonist: 75.0%-62.5% vs ghrelin 2: 46.2%-15.4% and control: 10%-0.0%; n=7-13 females/group; p