About Ovum Pick-Up and In-Vitro Fertilisation (OPU-IVF)
- Ovum Pick-Up (OPU): Oocytes (egg cells) are collected from a genetically valuable female animal using ultrasound guidance.
- In-Vitro Fertilisation (IVF): The collected oocytes are matured and fertilised with selected semen in a laboratory to produce embryos.
- Embryo Transfer: The embryos are cultured and transferred into synchronised recipient females, which carry the pregnancy.
- Importance: OPU-IVF enables the production of multiple embryos from elite females, helping accelerate breed improvement, genetic multiplication and conservation of valuable indigenous breeds.
Advantages Over Multiple Ovulation and Embryo Transfer (MOET)
- Collection Frequency: OPU can be repeated weekly or every 7-10 days, whereas MOET needs 60-90 day rest intervals between flushings.
- Donor Eligibility: usable on young heifers, animals in early pregnancy (up to about 100 days in cattle), and aged or subfertile donors that do not respond to hormonal superovulation.
- Non-Stimulated Recovery: oocytes can be harvested without heavy hormonal injections, protecting donor health and welfare.
- Semen Efficiency: a single semen unit can fertilise oocytes from several donors, and oocytes from one donor can be split across semen from multiple sires, including sex-sorted semen.
Applications and Field Milestones
- Rashtriya Gokul Mission (RGM): India’s first OPU-IVF calf, named ‘Holi’, was born from an aged cow at ICAR-NDRI, Karnal, and ICAR-IVRI Bareilly produced five Sahiwal calves from one elite donor within five days.
- Badri Cattle: Uttarakhand’s indigenous Badri germplasm has been multiplied by transferring OPU-IVF Badri embryos into Sahiwal recipient cows.
- Beef Cattle Breeding: applied on Korean Hanwoo ‘giant cows’ exceeding 1,000 kg to produce sires that raise carcass weight above national averages.
- Equine Breeding: OPU-ICSI lets elite sport mares produce foals without interrupting competition; standardised ethical checklists now guide welfare and procedural transparency.
- Human Fertility Preservation: combined with ovarian tissue cryopreservation to preserve fertility in cancer patients before gonadotoxic treatment; Indian ART clinics operate under the Assisted Reproductive Technology (Regulation) Act, 2021.
Conclusion
OPU-IVF-ET is a powerful reproductive biotechnology that enables faster multiplication, conservation and genetic improvement of elite livestock, offering major advantages over conventional breeding and MOET.
Despite high costs, technical expertise requirements and dependence on suitable recipients, its expanding applications make it an important tool for sustainable livestock breeding and indigenous breed conservation.
| This concept has been elaborately discussed in the following article Badri Cattle |