Brief Summary of Minutes of Annual Meeting

Minutes of the W3171 Technical Committee Meeting

Renaissance Austin Hotel, Austin, TX

January 13, 2017

The meeting was called to order at 1:05 pm by Committee Chair, Rick Rorie (Arkansas).  In attendance were Rick Rorie (Arkansas), Quinton Winger (Colorado), Cindy Tian (Connecticut), Matt Wheeler (Illinois), Curt Youngs (Iowa), Ken Bondioli (Louisiana), Carol Keefer (Maryland) and Brett White (Nebraska).  In addition, graduate student, Mohan Acharya (Arkansas), attended the meeting as a guest.

The meeting agenda was reviewed and adjusted as there was no report from our USDA/NIFA Administrator, Mark Mirando.  Curt Youngs (Iowa) made a motion to approve the minutes from the previous meeting as read and Carol Keefer (Maryland) seconded the motion.  The minutes were unanimously approved.  W3171 Administrator, Milan Shipka, addressed committee members.  Milan discussed some budget changes for USDA/NIFA AFRI proposals as well as provided guidance for submission of the project's report of accomplishments, impacts and publications, emphasizing our cooperative/collaborative work on research projects.

Station reports were presented and discussed for Arkansas, Colorado, Connecticut, Illinois, Iowa, Louisiana, Maryland and Nebraska.  Potential new collaborative projects were discussed at length among the participating station representatives.  Areas of investigation with the potential for collaboration among stations include: effects of energy sources and sex on embryo metabolism, effects of gamete/embryo culture and cryopreservation techniques on epigenetics, X-chromosome inactivation, fertility in non-traditional sheep breeds and gene knockdown approaches to evaluate reproductive mechanisms in livestock.  

Kiho Lee (Virginia) was nominated to serve as Secretary for the W3171 Technical Committee in 2017.  Since he was not in attendance, a subsequent conversation with Kiho Lee resulted in his acceptance of this position.  Brett White (Nebraska) will serve as Chair for the coming year.  The 2018 IETS Conference will be held at Jeju Island, South Korea.  Therefore, the committee voted to meet in either Anchorage or Fairbanks, Alaska, which was graciously offered by our Administrator, Milan Shipka.  Suggested dates for the meeting were late May/early June 2018 and will be determined at a later date.

Meeting adjourned at 4:45 pm.

Respectively Submitted,

Brett White - Secretary

W3171 Technical Committee

Objective 1

Results indicated that either Anti-Mullerian Hormone (AMH) concentration at breeding or the change in AMH from weaning to breeding can identify beef heifers more likely to conceive to AI and to conceive early in the breeding season.  Anti-Mullerian hormone (AMH) also reduces the follicular growth rate of isolated goat preantral follicles in vitro without affecting follicular survival.

Generated a list of genes suitable to serve as quantitative references during embryonic development.

Developed a bioinformatics tool for cross-stage mining of genes that are co-regulated and conserved among different species. This tool is available for any scientist to use without charge.

Determined that it is possible predict the future development of in vitro produced bovine embryos after only 2 days of culture using 1H-nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR).

Evaluation of embryo metabolism by Gas Chromatogrpahy-Mass spectrometry (GC-MS) demonstrated that this approach is capable of measuring substrate use and metabolic pathway fluxes in as few as 4 embryos and that substrate balance in the media has a profound influence on pathway activities (e.g., glycolysis).

Developed a new electric channel device method to select high motility sperm without harming sperm characteristics. These results showed that our device produced the same quality of sperm obtained with discontinuous Percoll gradients and Swim-Up but in as little as 20 min.

Analysis of hormone levels in the blood of GnRH-II receptor knockdown and littermate control boars during pubertal development indicated that testosterone secretion was impaired in GnRHR-II KD males, however, LH levels were similar between swine lines.

Initial characterization of global epigenetic marks (histone modifications) in oocytes derived from small vs. large (pre-ovulatory) follicles revealed that there may be no difference in H3K4me3, but that H3K9me3, H3K27me3, and DNA methylation levels may be different between oocyte from the different sized follicles.

Objective 2

Methods for efficient delivery of solutions into livestock oocytes and zygotes as well as robust derivation of bovine embryonic stem cells were developed.

Established a reprogramming assay to study mechanisms/factors for naïve-state pluripotent iPSC generation.

Determined that novel collagen-glycosaminoglycan hydrogel (CG) scaffolds support bone and cartilage growth from mesenchymal stem cells.

Ascertained that zinc has a positive effect on bone formation of adipose stem cells in vitro.

Demonstrated that site directed insertion of a large transgene construct can be efficiently attained by using CRISPR/Cas9.

Preliminary results indicated that vitrification solutions containing glycerol in combination

with ethylene glycol result in greater changes in DNA methylation levels than solutions containing DMSO in combination with ethylene glycol.

Developed and optimized smaller-sized variants of the Dracula micromanipulation system for use on embryos of other species.

Modification of the CFTR gene in sheep cells has been remarkably efficient.  Very high pregnancy rates have resulted from embryo transfers using cloned embryos derived from CFTR-modified karyoplast donor cells.

Baker, C.M., L.N. Goetzmann, J.D. Cantlon, K.M. Jeckel, Q.A. Winger, and R.V. Anthony RV. 2016. Development of ovine chorionic somatomammotropin hormone-deficient pregnancies. Am. J. Physiol. Regul. Integr. Comp. Physiol. 310:R837-R846.

Bogliotti, Y.S., M. Vilarino, and P.J. Ross. 2016. Laser-assisted cytoplasmic microinjection in livestock zygotes. J. Vis. Exp. 116.

Brauer, V.M., J.R. Wiarda-Bell, A.T. Desaulniers, R.A. Cederberg, and B.R. White. 2016.

Functional activity of the Gnrhr2 gene promoter in testis-derived cells is partially conferred

by nuclear factor-kkB, specificity protein 1 and 3 (SP1/3) and overlapping early growth

response 1/SP1/3 binding sites. Gene 587:137-146.

Chio, I.I., S.M. Jafarnejad, M. Ponz-Sarvise, Y. Park, K. Rivera, W. Palm, J. Wilson, V. Sangar,

1. Hao, D. Öhlund, K. Wright, D. Filippini, E.J. Lee, B. Da Silva, C. Schoepfer, J.E. Wilkinson,

J.M. Buscaglia, G.M. DeNicola, H. Tiriac, M. Hammell, H.C. Crawford, E.E. Schmidt, C.B. Thompson, D.J. Pappin, N. Sonenberg, and D.A. Tuveson. 2016. NRF2 promotes tumor maintenance by modulating mRNA translation in pancreatic cancer. Cell 166:963-976.

Davis, K.A., K.M. Klohonatz, G.J. Bouma, and J.E. Bruemmer. 2016. Androgen receptor in the term equine placenta. J. Eq. Vet. Sci. 54:8-11.

Diaz, F., K. Bondioli, D. Pacamonti, and G.T. Gentry. 2016 .Cryopreservation of Day 8 equine

embryos after blastocyst micromanipulation and vitrification Theriogenology 85:894-903.

Dóka, É., I. Pader, A. Bíró, K. Johansson, Q. Cheng, K. Ballagó, J.R. Prigge, D. Pastor-Flores, T.P. Dick, E.E. Schmidt, E.S. Arnér, and P. Nagy. 2016. A novel persulfide detection method reveals protein persulfide- and polysulfide-reducing functions of thioredoxin and glutathione systems. Science Advances. 2:e1500968.

Gladyshev, V.N., E.S. Arnér, M.J. Berry, R. Brigelius-Flohé, E.A. Bruford, R.F. Burk, B.A. Carlson, S. Castellano, L. Chavatte, M. Conrad, P.R. Copeland, A.M. Diamond, D.M. Driscoll, A. Ferreiro, L. Flohé, F.R. Green, R. Guigó, D.E. Handy, D.L. Hatfield, J. Hesketh, P.R. Hoffmann, A. Holmgren, R.J. Hondal, M.T. Howard, K. Huang, H.Y. Kim, I.Y. Kim, J. Köhrle, A. Krol, G.V. Kryukov, B.J. Lee, B.C. Lee, X.G. Lei, Q. Liu, A. Lescure, A.V. Lobanov, J. Loscalzo, M. Maiorino, M. Mariotti, P.K. Sandeep, M.P. Rayman, S. Rozovsky, G. Salinas, E.E. Schmidt, L. Schomburg, U. Schweizer, M. Simonović, R.A. Sunde, P.A. Tsuji, S. Tweedie, F. Ursini, P.D. Whanger, and Y. Zhang. 2016. Selenoprotein gene nomenclature. J. Biol. Chem. 291:24036-24040.

Hill, R., A . Canal, K. Bondioli, R. Morell, and M.D. Garcia. 2016. Molecular markers

located on the DGAT1, CAST, and LEPR genes and their associations with milk production

and fertility traits in Holstein cattle. Genet. Mol. Res. 15:gmr.15017794.

Hollister, S. J., C.L. Flanagan, D.A. Zopf, R.J. Morrison, H. Nasser, M.B. Wheeler, and G.E.

Green. 2016. Design and quality control for translating 3D-printed scaffolds. In:  Essentials of 3D Biofabrication and Translation. Elsevier, Inc. pp. 43-59.

Hollister, S.J., C.L. Flanagan, R.J. Morrison, J.J. Patel, M.B. Wheeler, S.P. Edwards, and G.E. Green. 2016. Integrating image-based design and 3D biomaterial printing to create patient

specific devices within a design control framework for clinical translation. ACS Biomater.

Sci. Eng. 2:1827−1836.

Klohonatz, K.M., A.D. Cameron, J.R. Hergenreder, J.C. da Silveira, A.D. Belk, D.N.R. Veeramachaneni, G.J. Bouma, and J.E. Bruemmer. 2016. Circulating miRNAs as potential alternative cell signaling associated with maternal recognition of pregnancy in the mare. Biol. Reprod. 95:124.

Lan, A., W. Li, Y. Liu, Z. Xiong, X. Zhang, S. Zhou, O. Palko, H. Chen, M. Kapita, J.R. Prigge, E.E. Schmidt, X. Chen, Z. Sun, and X.L. Chen. 2016. Chemoprevention of oxidative stress associated oral carcinogenesis by sulforaphane depends on NRF2 and the isothiocyanate moiety.

Oncotarget. 7:53502-53514.

Legacki, E.L., E.L. Scholtz, B.A. Ball, S.D. Stanley, T. Berger, and A.J. Conley. 2016. The dynamic steroid landscape of equine pregnancy mapped by mass spectrometry. Reproduction 151:421-430.

Lyman, J.T., D.K. Oh, G. Torres, R. Magin, M.B. Wheeler. 2016. The use of nuclear magnetic

resonance spectroscopy for viability predictions on mouse preimplantation embryos. Int. J. New Tech. Res. 2:14-20.

Martins, L.T., S. Gaudêncio Neto, K.C.S. Tavares, C.E.M. Calderón, L.H. Aguiar, C. Lazzarotto, F.L. Ongaratto, V.H.V. Rodrigues, F.E. Lopes, L.P.R. Teixeira, I.S. Carneiro, R. Rossetto, A.P. Almeida, S.S.L. Fernandes, D. Rondina, I.A. Polejaeva, J.L. Rodrigues, F. Forell, L.R. Bertolini, and M. Bertolini. 2016. Developmental outcome and related abnormalities in goats: comparison between somatic cell nuclear transfer- and in vivo-derived concepti during pregnancy through term. Cell. Reprogram. 18:264-279.

McDonald, E.A., J.E. Smith, R. A. Cederberg, and B.R. White. 2016. Divergent activity of

the gonadotropin-releasing hormone receptor gene promoter among genetic lines of pigs is

partially conferred by nuclear factor (NF)-kkB, specificity protein (SP)1-like and GATA-4

binding sites. Reprod. Biol. Endocrinol. 14:36.

Mizell, S., S. Miller, K. Bondioli, and M.D. Garcia. 2016. A comparison of F1 steers sired by

one of three paternal breed types for growth and carcass traits. EC Veterinary Science 2.4:177-181.

Monzani, P.S., P.R. Adona, F.V. Meirelles, O.M. Ohashi, and M.B. Wheeler. 2016. Transgenic

bovine as bioreactor: challenges and perspectives. Bioengineered 7:123-131.

Newberry, H.R., T.D. Lester, B. Kegley, C. Rosenkrans, and R.W. Rorie. 2016. Use of anti-mullerian hormone to select for fertility in beef heifers. Discovery 17:79-84.

Polejaeva, I.A., H.M. Rutigliano, and K. Wells. 2016. Livestock in biomedical research: history,

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Polejaeva, I.A., R. Ranjan, C.J. Davies, M. Regouski, J. Hall, A.L. Olsen, Q. Meng, H.M. Rutigliano, D.J. Dosdall, N.A. Angel, F.B. Sachse, T. Seidel, A.J. Thomas, R. Stott, K.E. Panter, P.M. Lee, A.J. Van Wettere, J.R. Stevens, Z. Wang, R.S. MacLeod, N.F. Marrouche, and K.L. White. 2016. Increased susceptibility to atrial fibrillation secondary to myocardial fibrosis in transgenic goats with cardiac specific overexpression of transforming growth factor- B1. J. Cardiovasc. Electrophysiol. 27:1220-1229.

Rorie, R.W., C.L. Williams, and T.D. Lester. 2016. Association of osteopontin gene promoter single nucleotide polymorphisms with bull semen quality. Adv. Reprod. Sci. 4:1-7.

Rubessa, M., A. Ambrosi, D. Gonzalez-Pena, K.M. Polkoff, S.E. Denmark, and M.B. Wheeler.

2016. Non-invasive analysis of bovine embryo metabolites during in vitro embryo culture

using nuclear magnetic resonance. AIMS Bioengineering 3:538-551.

Rubessa, M., A. Ambrosi, S.E. Denmark, and M.B. Wheeler. 2016. Non-invasive analysis of

gamete metabolites during in vitro embryo production using nuclear magnetic resonance.

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Rubessa, M., A. Gaja, and M.B. Wheeler. 2016. Separation of motile bovine spermatozoa for in vitro fertilization by electrical charge. Andrology (Los Angel) 5:153.

Sun, J., Z. Jiang, X.C. Tian, and J. Bi. 2016. A cross-species bi-clustering approach to identifying conserved co-regulated genes. Bioinformatics 32:i137-i146.

Shepardson, K.M., K. Larson, R.V. Morton, J.R. Prigge, E.E. Schmidt, V.C. Huber, and A. Rynda-Apple. 2016. Differential type I interferon signaling is a master regulator of susceptibility to postinfluenza bacterial superinfection. MBio 7(3).

Twenter, H.M., A.D. Belk, K.M. Klohonatz, L.D. Bass, G.J. Bouma, and J.E. Bruemmer. 2016. An investigation into miRNAs in the equine epididymis as potential regulators of spermatozoal

maturation. J. Eq. Vet. Sci. 48:61-68.

Vansandt, L.M., J.L. Livesay, J.L., M.J. Dickson, L. Li, B.S. Pukazhenthi, and C.L. Keefer.

2016. Conservation of spermatogonial stem cell marker expression in undifferentiated

felid spermatogonia. Theriogenology 86:1022-1035.

Yang, M., J. Hall, Z. Fan, M. Regouski, Q. Meng, H.M. Rutigliano, R. Stott, K.A. Rood,

K.E. Panter, and I.A. Polejaeva. 2016. Oocytes from small and large follicles exhibit similar

development competence following goat cloning despite their differences in meiotic and

cytoplasmic maturation. Theriogenology 86:2302-2311.

Youngs, C.R. 2016. Modern reproductive technologies to improve cattle production. Ceiba

54:31-40.