Described by Otto Warburg in 1956, the WE describes metabolism in rapidly dividing cells such as cancer cells. Deep sequencing and mRNA quantitation showed that pig blastocysts possessed a transcriptional profile similar to the WE. The WE pattern of gene expression results in a high uptake of glucose, and pushes the cell’s metabolism to use the pentose phosphate pathway and limit the use of the tricarboxylic acid (TCA) cycle. Coincidently, inhibition of the TCA cycle at the time of embryo compaction increases the developmental potential of pig embryos.