Distribution of cortical granules in bovine oocytes classified by cumulus complex

The present study was conducted to examine distributional changes of cortical granules (CGs) during meiotic maturation and fertilisation in vitro and the developmental ability in bovine oocytes classified by cumulus cells. The oocytes were classified by the morphology of their cumulus cell layers as follows: class A, compact and thick; class B, compact but thin; class C, naked; and class D, expanded. Some of the oocytes were stained with Lens curinalis agglutinin (LCA) before and after maturation in vitro and after insemination, and then stained with orcein to observe their nuclear stages. The others were left in culture. Distributional patterns of the CGs were classified into four types: type I, CGs distributed in clusters; type II, CGs dispersed and partly clustered; type III, all CGs dispersed; and type IV, no CGs. Most of the oocytes before culture showed a type I pattern, but this decreased after maturation culture, whereas type III increased in class A. The oocytes of class B showed similar changes while the oocytes of class C did not. In class C, many oocytes showed type I after culture, indicating that cytoplasmic maturation was not completed. In class D, 80.4% of the oocytes exhibited type III before maturation culture, indicating that their cytoplasmic maturation was different from classes A-C. And about 70% of the class D oocytes were at the nuclear stage of germinal vesicle breakdown (GVBD) before culture. The developmental rates to blastocysts in classes A-D were 28.7%, 23.1%, 0.5% and 3.4% respectively.