Cathepsins (CTSs), a family of lysosomal cysteine proteases, and their inhibitors (CSTs) play a critical role in remodeling of the uterine endometrium and placenta for the establishment and maintenance of pregnancy in many animal species including rodents, sheep, cow and pigs. It has been shown that the high rate of pregnancy failure by somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT) is associated with abnormal placental development. Our previous study has shown that CST6 is highly expressed in the uterine endometrium from mid to late pregnancy in pigs. In this study, to understand whether appropriate endometrial and placental tissue remodeling occurs in the uterine endometrium from gilts with conceptuses derived from SCNT during pregnancy in pigs, we investigated expression of CST6 in the uterine endometrium. Uterine endometrial tissues were obtained from gilts that carried SCNT-derived normal conceptuses (NT-No) and abnormal conceptuses (NT-Ab), and from gilts carrying conceptuses from natural mating (Non-NT) on D114 of pregnancy. Immunoblot analysis showed that CST6 protein levels in the endometrial tissues of gilts carrying NT-No were lower than those of gilts carrying Non-NT. The levels of CST6 protein in the endometrial tissues of gilts carrying NT-Ab decreased even more than those of gilts carrying NT-No. These results indicate that decreased expression of CST6 in the endometrium with NT-No and NT-Ab reflects inappropriate endometrial tissue remodeling and pregnancy failure of pigs with SCNT derived conceptuses and that CST6 plays an important role for the maintenance of pregnancy in pigs. * This work was supported by the Next Generation BioGreen 21 program (#PJ007997), RDA, Republic of Korea.

The objective of this study was to examine the effect of caffeine and sodium bicarbonate in a fertilization medium on the fertilizability of boar spermatozoa that were frozen in straws. Boar spermatozoa were extended with Beltsville F5 extender and frozen in 0.25‐ml straws. In vitro matured porcine oocytes were fertilized in vitro (IVF) with frozen‐thawed boar spermatozoa for 6 h in a modified tris‐buffered medium (mTBM) or in its modified medium by substituting the tris with 25 mM sodium bicarbonate (modified bicarbonate‐buffered medium; mBBM). Some of inseminated oocytes were fixed and stained for examination of sperm penetration. IVF embryos were cultured in a North Carolina State University‐23 medium for embryo development. The percentage of live sperm was 47±4% and morphological abnormality of acrosome was found in 14±3% of spermatozoa. Optimal sperm concentration for IVF was 0.75～1.0×106 sperms/ml when mTBM containing 5 mM caffeine was used as the fertilization medium. Sperm penetration was significantly (p<0.05) stimulated by increasing caffeine concentration in the IVF medium. In addition, mBBM significantly (p<0.05) increased sperm penetration (92%) compared to mTBM (65%). More (p<0.05) blastocysts (22% vs. 32%) developed from the oocytes that were fertilized in mBBM containing 1 mM caffeine than from those fertilized in mTBM with 5 mM caffeine. Our results indicate that boar spermatozoa can be frozen successfully in straws with holding their normal fertilizability and that caffeine and sodium bicarbonate stimulates sperm penetration in vitro.