replacement of folltropin-v (porcine fsh, france) and ecg (equine gonadotropin, argentina) with cinnal-f (human recombinant fsh, i. r. iran) for multiple ovulation in cattle and sheep

Multiple ovulation is a procedure to achieve more embryos within embryo transfer program in cattle industry, and to achieve twin pregnancies in sheep industry. multiple ovulation is achieved by stimulating ovarian follicle with fsh or fsh-like factors like ecg. fsh could be extracted from pituitary gland, mainly with porcine origin. during extraction, fsh product could be contaminated with varying degree of lh resulting in low response. folltropin- v (vetoquinol, france) is claimed to be a highly purified porcine fsh used for superovulation in cattle. it is very expensive product and costs nearly 80 million rials for superovulation in a single cow. recently, we have compared human recombinant fsh (cinnal-f), made by iranian company, cinnagen, with folltropin-v for superovulation in high-producing dairy cows (khodadadi et al., 2022). there was not any significant difference in superovulatory responses between two products. cinnal-f is much cheaper products (20 million rials) compared to folltropin-v, without any lh contamination. ecg is extracted from pregnant mare serum with trophoblast origin. two companies in the world in australia and argentina are producing ecg and distribute it worldwide. it was initially used for superovulation in cattle as well. but due to several drawbacks, it is not used for multiple ovulation and embryos transfer in cattle anymore. however, since mid-fifties, it was used exclusively for twin ovulation in sheep. more recently, we have examined cinnal-f to replace ecg for inducing twin ovulation in sheep (unpublished data). in the first experiment, cinnal-f has proven to be effective for inducing twin ovulation in shal ewes. in the second experiment, which is still underway, we compared cinnal-f with ecg for inducing twin ovulation in assaf and lacaune sheep. our initial results have shown that cinnal-f is similar to ecg as far as pregnancy rate concerns. in conclusion, cinnal-f is an available, cheap and proudly iranian brand that could be replaced with folltropin-v and ecg in cattle and sheep industry.