Role of sirtuins in pronucleus formation in vitro fertilised porcine oocytes

Recently, the increasing importance of reproductive biotechnologies rises. They provide us to get higher performance of livestock or to improve treatment in human medicine. It is neccessary to have a sufficient amount of developmentaly competent oocytes and further healthy liveable embryos for in vitro culture to supply a progress of reproductive technologies. Immediately after fertilization, pronucleus formation is a key moment for further embryonicdevelopment. Male and female pronuclei have their own pattern of histone code. For development of early embryo, it is neccessary to supply the correct pattern of histone code. NAD+-dependent histon deacetylases, sirtuins, are one of the mechanism which plays in regulation of histone code. These family contains seven isoforms, SIRT1-7. Based on current research, we decided for hypothesis that sirtuins are present in porcine fertilized oocytes and regulate the pronucleus formation. In this thesis, porcine COCs were culture in modificated culture medium and after 44 hr. maturation, only oocytes with extruded first polar body were chosen and used for further in vitro fertilization. Presumed zygotes were subsequently cultured with sirtuins inhibitors, nicotinamide or sirtinol. After 22 hr. of in vitro culture, zygotes were subjected by imunocytochemicaly localization of methylated and acetylated (on lysine K9) histone H3 and image analysis. Our results show that SIRT1 is localizated in porcine zygotes, especially in pronuclei. There are changes in acetylation and methylation H3K9 after sirtuin inhibition. Significant increase of H3K9 acetylation and decrese in H3K9 methylation are appeared. Sirtinol usage has confirmed that the changes are result of SIRT1 action. Role of SIRT1 in histone code regulation of pronucleus formation is still not enought described in porcine