RESUMO
The aim was to verify the effect of follicle-stimulating hormone (FSH) supplementation to α-MEM+ or TCM199+ media on the in vitro development of ovarian preantral follicles (PFs) derived from collared peccaries. Ovaries (n = 5 pairs) were collected and divided into fragments destined to control group (non-cultured) or treatments that were cultured for 7 days. The PFs morphology, growth and activation were evaluated by classical histology. The immunohistochemistry markers Ag-NOR and PCNA were used for nuclear proliferation analysis, and the picrosirius red labelling was used for ovarian extracellular matrix (ECM) evaluation. After 7-day culture, only the TCM199+ treatment maintained the proportion of intact PFs similar to day 1 (63.2%), but no differences were found among treatments (p > .05). In addition, a significant increase in the growing follicles proportion was verified for all the treatments, indicating follicular activation (p > .05). By the Ag-NOR analysis, only the TCM199+/FSH maintained the nuclear proliferation similar to the first day (p > .05). The picrosirius red staining revealed that the ECM remained intact in all the treatments (p > .05). We suggest the use of TCM199+ medium supplemented of FSH for the in vitro development of peccaries PFs under 7-day culturing conditions.