Journal of Cell and Animal Biology Vol. 2 (3), pp.

072-078, March, 2008

Available online at http://www.academicjournals.org/JCAB
ISSN 1996-0867 2007 Academic Journals

Full Length Research Paper

Assessment of Bos taurus embryos comparing

stereoscopic microscopy and transmission electron
microscopy
Lpez-Damin E. P1, Galina C. S1*, Merchant H2, Cedillo-Pelez C3 and Aspron M4.
1

Departamento de Reproduccin. Facultad de Medicina Veterinaria y Zootecnia. Universidad Nacional Autnoma de

Mxico.
2
Departamento de Biologa Celular y Fisiologa. Instituto de Investigaciones Biomdicas. Universidad Nacional
Autnoma de Mxico.
3
Unidad de Microscopa Electrnica. Departamento de Patologa. Facultad de Medicina Veterinaria y Zootecnia.
Universidad Nacional Autnoma de Mxico.
4
Escuela de Medicina Veterinaria. Universidad Autnoma de Quertaro.
Accepted 19th February, 2008

Transmission electronic microscopy was used to test the efficiency of the classification criteria for Bos
taurus embryos using conventional stereoscopic microscopy, since the criteria used for Bos indicus
has proved inaccurate with the latter method. Embryos were collected from Holstein heifers 7 days after
artificial insemination and classified according to the criteria established by the International Embryo
Transfer Society (IETS). Ten embryos were sorted in each quality group (good, fair, and poor),
processed and fine sections obtained for evaluation under electron microscope. Results showed that
embryos classified as good using stereoscopic microscopy increased from 33 to 47% when evaluated
by transmission electronic microscopy, while the fair embryos decreased from 33 to 20% and the poor
embryos did not change. Likewise, using the Kappa Cohens test the rate of correlation between the
evaluation methods this was found to be moderate. These findings show that the greatest variation
between the two methods used is within the embryos classified as fair. In conclusion, the classification
criteria for Bos taurus proposed by the IETS is accurate for Bos taurus type embryos and those
classified as fair should be considered for freezing, as their cellular structure show capacity to resist
cryopreservation.
Key words: Bos taurus, embryonic quality, morphological evaluation, electron microscopy, stereoscopic
microscopy.
INTRODUCTION
The development of Embryo Transfer (ET) in the tropics
has been slow in spite of several obvious applications,
such as preserving and diffusing breeds with a low
stocking presence. Moreover, placing F1 embryos, product of Bos taurus and Bos indicus combinations,

*Corresponding author. E-mail: cgalina@servidor.unam.mx.Tel:

52 55 5622 5860. Fax: 52 55 5616 2342.
Abbreviations: Inner cell mass ICM, International Embryo
Transfer Society IETS, Light microscopy LM, Stereoscopic
microscopy StM, Transmission electron microscopy TEM,
Trophoblastic cells TF, Zona pellucida ZP.

should improve the local existing breeds (Cunningham

1989, Teodoro et al., 1996). Nonetheless, there are
important constraints in the implementation of embryo
transfer under tropical conditions, in particular the low
ovulation rate in Bos indicus females (Plasse et al.,
1970), poor estrous detection (Galina and Orihuela,
2007), and difficulties in placing the embryos in the
appropriate site (Montiel et al., 2006).
Preserving embryos using diverse freezing techniques
requires an accurate assessment of the embryos which
are normally evaluated through a stereoscopic microscope (StM), in itself a fairly subjective technique. In
effect, Farin et al. (1995) showed a variation range of
32% between observers. Similar results were obtained by