Follicular development, plasma Inhibin-A and Estradiol-17-beta concentrations in Buffalo cows during different treatment schedules for MOET programs.

Buffalo cows were submitted to three superovulatory treatments. T1 (n = 7): PRID for 10 days (d0-d9) plus decreasing doses of 500 IU FSH/LH (12 h-intervals d7 d10); T2 (n = 8): PRID for 11 d (d0-d10) plus 2000 IU PMSG at d7; T3 (n = 9): PRID for 11 d plus 2000 IU PMSG at d7 and decreasing doses of 175 IU FSH/LH (12 h-intervals d10 d11). Overall plasma inhibin A (In-A) concentrations correlated with large follicles (LF, diameter >6mm, R=0.83, P<0.01) and small folli-cles (SF, <6mm, R=-0.21, P<0.01). Plasma E2 correlated weakly with LF (R=0.21, P<0.05). Within treatment, there was always a positive correlation between In-A and LF (T1 R=0.83; T2 R=0.81; T3 R=0.83; P<0.01), but only in T3 there were correlations between In-A and E2 (R=0.67, P<0.01) and SF (R=-0.42, P<0.01), between E2 and LF (R=0.39, P<0.01) and SF (R= 0.35, P<0.05). T3 was fol-lowed by a higher number of follicles with diameter >10 mm at d12-13 (T1=5.0+/-1.4, T2=1.2+/-0.9, T3=8.3+/-2.3). In-A concentrations significantly rised at d11-13 of T1 and T3. In-A seems a good indicator of the follicular development during superovulation in buffalo cows, while E2 is not. Furthermore T3 was followed by better ovarian follicular responses