Embryo Transfer In Pig - The Indispensable Technique Of Assisted Reproduction

It was 70 years ago when the team led by Professor KVASNICKI (1951) carried out the first successful embryo transfer in pig at the research institute of Poltava, Ukraine. Surgical techniques were used for both embryo recovery and transfer. Nine embryos were transferred into the oviduct of the recipient animal and four healthy piglets were born. POLGE and DAY (1968) published the first paper on successful application of non-surgical embryo transfer in pig. The pig embryo transfer technology consists of the following steps: selection of the donor animals, control of the oestrous cycle, embryo recovery, evaluation of the quality of the collected embryos, in vitro culture of the embryos (transportation of the embryos), preparation of the recipients for the embryo transfer, and embryo transfer. The surgical and non-surgical techniques have been developed and simplified very much since the first success!The pig is a very important species in the biological, medical, veterinary medical and pharmacological investigations. The authors express their hope that the international trade of live breeding pigs with top genetic value will be replaced by the trade of embryos obtained from very valuable donor pigs. The trade of breeding animals in the form of embryo is safer than that of the live animal transportation. Using the embryo import and embryo transfer the risk of introducing infectious diseases is much lower. In the near future, hopefully, the organs that are planned to be used in xenotransplantation programs in the human medicine will be produced by piglets born from embryos of cloned/genetically manipulated donor pigs. Pig embryo transfers already support the animal conservation programs.