Variability in different lots of commercial bovine serum albumin affects cell multiplication and hatching of rabbit blastocysts in culture

Rabbit morulae were cultured in vitro for 4 days in a synthetic culture medium supplemented with two different lots of commercial bovine serum albumin (BSA) and two different amino acid formulations in a factorial 2 x 2 arrangement. One lot of BSA caused complete hatching of a proportion of blastocysts and formation of more than twice as many cells per blastocyst (hatched and unhatched) as that of the second BSA lot which did not cause complete hatching of any blastocysts. The mean cell numbers of hatched blastocysts were more than twice those of non-hatched blastocysts. There was no significant effect of amino acid formulation.