MANIPULATION OF EARLY EMBRYONIC-DEVELOPMENT

Over the last 15 years, significant advances in our understanding of mechanisms that regulate development of the mammalian embryo have been achieved. Much of this information has been gained as a result of elegant technologies that have been developed to precisely manipulate the embryo in vitro. These powerful procedures, while often inefficient in producing live offspring with altered phenotypes, have nonetheless allowed the investigator and practitioner unique opportunities to design and test novel experiments that have dramatically increased our understanding of mechanisms that regulate embryonic development of livestock. Of these technologies to date, embryo transfer has proven to be most valuable commercially with respect to the cattle industry. Clearly, broad application of technologies to genetically engineer livestock will rely heavily on the ability to improve the cost and production efficiencies of these procedures. The importance of developing predictive, non-invasive assays that correlate directly with the developmental competence, or viability, of domestic species embryos is presented. The application of such non-subjective selection procedures with likely accelerate the integration, and enhance the commercial value of embryo manipulation technologies in the future.