Ultrastructural features of bovine cumulus-corona cells surrounding oocytes, zygotes and early embryos

Abstract Integrated transmission and scanning electron microscopic (TEM and SEM) techniques have provided the first detailed description of the ultrastructural features of the bovine cumulus-corona (CC) cells surrounding oocytes at the time of final maturation, zygotes and early cleaving embryos (2/4 to 6/8 blastomeres). TEM revealed the presence of rough endoplasmic reticulum and Golgi complexes in the cytoplasm of CC cells surrounding immature, mature and fertilized eggs, and also revealed an increasing amount of smooth endoplasmic reticulation membranes, lipid droplets and mitochondria with villiform and/or tubular cristae in the cytoplasm of CC cells during maturation and fertilization of the oocyte. In addition, a loss of cell-to-cell junctions between CC cells was evident. TEM also demonstrated that a few residual CC cells were still associated with early embryos and that these cells showed rather degenerative or apoptotic patterns, the latter pattern also observed on cells associated with fertilized eggs. SEM revealed that the complex of CC cells of immature oocytes was compact with narrow intercellular spaces, which progressively enlarged in size around mature oocytes. This phenomenon is mostly due to the production of abundant extracellular matrix. Immature CC cell complexes possessed characteristic long and filiform microvilli whereas the surface of CC cells surrounding mature oocytes showed numerous blebs and occasional large cytoplasmic protrusions as well as microvilli. Zygotes and early embryos were covered with a few polyhedral CC cells possessing scarce and short microvilli and a large amount of pleomorphic blebs. This study demonstrated a precocious luteinization occurring in bovine CC cells at ovulation until zygote segmentation, and this process was associated with a progressive apoptotic mechanism that ended in the complete denudation of the zona pellucida covering the early embryo. The presence of CC cells around the maturing oocyte and fertilized egg could have important functions related to the microenvironmental requirements of ovum maturation as well as facilitating activities related to fertilization.