Predetermination of the sex in the offspring of domestic animals has been a major issue on animal breeding. The Y chromosome-specific repetitive sequences have used for the sexing of preimplantation embryos by PCR method in humans (Handyside et al., 1...
Predetermination of the sex in the offspring of domestic animals has been a major issue on animal breeding. The Y chromosome-specific repetitive sequences have used for the sexing of preimplantation embryos by PCR method in humans (Handyside et al., 1990) and cattle (Peura et al., 1991). Due to the presence of a large number of copies of the repetitive sequences on the Y chromosome, the detection of the Y-specific repetitive sequence has proved to be efficient. It has been reported that sex determination of IVF bovine embryos by PCR is significant in this field because this technique allows amplification of Y-chromosome-specific repetitive sequences (Bredbacka et al., 1996). Thus, the object of this study was to determine sex of bovine embryos by FISH using bovine male-specific DNA probe produced by PCR, which allowed simultaneous detection of Y chromosome in lymphocyte and blastomeres, and to develop a rapid and sensitive FISH method for sex determination in bovine chromosome, sperm and embryos.