Development of nonsurgical reproductive biotechnologies in domestic ferret and rabbit models and characterization of cell allocation to the preimplantation blastocyst of the domestic ferret

The methods developed and presented in this dissertation provide alternatives to surgical reproductive biotechnologies. With modifications to accommodate species differences, they have application to a wide range of mammals and particular utility for assisted reproduction in endangered species. This research resulted in the first live young produced by nonsurgical, intrauterine embryo collection and transfer in the domestic ferret and domestic rabbit. This is believed to be the first report of nonsurgical, transcervical collection of embryos and nonsurgical, transcervical transfer of these same embryos in any species where the cervix could not be directly manipulated or directly visualized with the aid of a speculum.; Specially-designed transcervical catheters were used with a fiberoptic endoscope to visualize and then catheterize the rabbit and the ferret cervix. Transcervical uterine flushes in eight superovulated female rabbits resulted in the retrieval of 187 embryos, for an average of 23 embryos per rabbit. A total of 116 embryos transferred resulted in 80% of recipients giving birth to 23 young. In domestic ferrets, transcervical uterine flushes in each of 37 female ferrets resulted in the retrieval of 324 embryos. A total of 251 embryos transferred resulted in 65 young (26%) with 71% of embryo recipients producing young.; The equipment and procedures developed for nonsurgical embryo transfer in the domestic ferret were applied to nonsurgical artificial insemination in the ferret and resulted in the first successful transcervical, intrauterine artificial insemination in a carnivore. Intrauterine inseminations resulted in 19/24 (79%) of ferrets pregnant when inseminations were done 24 h following hCG administration. Regression analysis indicated a linear relationship (R{dollar}sp2{dollar} = 0.99) between the number of motile sperm inseminated (X) and the percentage of uterine implantations (Y).; Additionally, the first characterization of the pattern of cell allocation to the inner cell mass and trophectoderm in preimplantation blastocysts of a carnivore is reported. Differential fluorochrome staining was used to discriminate between inner cell mass and trophectoderm cells. Equations of best fit were determined to describe the exponential growth of these cell populations in ferret preimplantation blastocysts collected between 156 and 240 h post coitum.