Cellular osmoregulation enhances porcine embryo development by restoring zygotic genome activation via metabolic–epigenetic crosstalk

These findings identify that mitochondria in porcine preimplantation embryos act as osmotic stress sensors. Under conditions of extracellular organic osmolyte deficiency and elevated osmolarity, they drive metabolic reprogramming and nuclear epigenetic dysregulation, ultimately disrupting mitochondrial-nuclear communication, compromising ZGA, and inducing developmental arrest. These findings provide mechanistic insights for optimizing in vitro culture systems in reproductive technologies.