Fig. 4

Effect of follistatin supplementation on development of AKT inhibitors treated bovine embryos. Presumptive zygotes were cultured with 0 or 10 ng/ml recombinant human follistatin in the presence or absence of AKT inhibitor III (75 μM) or AKT inhibitor IV (3.5 μM) until 72 hpi then washed and cultured in fresh media lacking inhibitors and follistatin until d 7 (n = 4 replicates/inhibitor, n = 25–30 embryos/treatment). Effects of follistatin on multiple developmental endpoints for AKT inhibitor III or AKT inhibitor IV treated embryos were determined including; (a, e) early cleavage, (b, f) total cleavage, (c, g) development to 8- to 16-cell stage and (d, h) d7 blastocyst rates. Data are expressed as mean ± SEM. Values with different superscripts among treatments indicate significant differences (P < 0.05)