ABSTRACT
The use of juvenile invitro embryo transfer (JIVET) is limited by variation between prepubertal lambs in ovarian response to exogenous gonadotrophins. In cattle, anti-Müllerian hormone (AMH) is a predictive endocrine marker of antral follicle count. In this study we measured plasma AMH concentrations in lambs at 3 and 5 weeks of age and determined associations between AMH concentrations and ovarian response to gonadotrophins and invitro blastocyst production at 6-8 weeks of age in a JIVET program. At 5 weeks, AMH (n=38) was positively correlated with surface antral follicle count (r=0.87, P<0.001), blastocysts produced (r=0.92, P<0.001) and blastocysts produced as a proportion of oocytes collected (r=0.44, P<0.01) or cleaved (r=0.43, P<0.01). Similar associations were observed between AMH at 3 weeks (n=30) and follicle number (r=0.70, P<0.05) and blastocysts produced (r=0.87, P<0.05). Lambs with high (>2.2ngmL-1) compared with medium (0.4-2.2ngmL-1) and low (<0.4ngmL-1) AMH at 5 weeks had more antral follicles (mean (±s.e.m.) 118.7±13.9 vs 68.2±8.1 and 30.4±12.3 respectively; P<0.05) and more blastocysts produced (mean (±s.e.m.) 54.9±6.9 vs 18.9±4.0 and 7.5±6.1 respectively; P<0.05). These results suggest that AMH concentration at 5 weeks of age can be used to select donor lambs which enhance the success of JIVET programs.
