Research Paper|Volume 15, Issue 21|pp 12497—12512

Ferulic acid ameliorates the quality of in vitro-aged bovine oocytes by suppressing oxidative stress and apoptosis

Yi-Jing Yin¹, Yong-Hong Zhang¹, Yu Wang¹, Hao Jiang¹, Jia-Bao Zhang¹, Shuang Liang¹, Bao Yuan¹

¹Department of Animals Sciences, College of Animal Sciences, Jilin University, Changchun, China

* Equal contribution

Received: August 7, 2023Accepted: October 8, 2023Published: November 8, 2023

https://doi.org/10.18632/aging.205193

Copyright: © 2023 Yin et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Abstract

Ferulic acid (FA) is a well-known natural antioxidant that scavenges oxygen free radicals and alleviates oxidative stress. This study investigated the chemopreventive potential of FA against bovine oocyte quality decline during in vitro aging. The results showed that 5 μM FA supplementation decreased the abnormality rate of in vitro-aged bovine oocytes. In addition, FA supplementation effectively improved antioxidant capacity by removing excessive ROS and maintaining intracellular GSH levels and antioxidant enzyme activity. The mitochondrial activity, mitochondrial membrane potential and intracellular ATP levels in aged bovine oocytes were obviously enhanced by FA supplementation. Furthermore, FA supplementation reduced in vitro aging-induced DNA damage and maintained DNA stability in bovine oocytes. Moreover, sperm binding assay showed the number of sperm that bound to the zona pellucida on aged bovine oocytes was significantly higher in the FA supplemented group than in the Aged group. Therefore, FA is beneficial for maintaining in vitro-aged bovine oocyte quality and could become a potential antioxidant for preventing bovine oocyte in vitro aging during in vitro maturation.