Animal reproductive biotechnologies are required to be more effective in terms of in vitro embryo production. The positive effect of n-3 poly-unsaturated fatty acids (FA) on fertility in ruminants seems to be partly mediated through direct effects on the oocyte developmental potential. We aimed to investigate whether supplementation with physiological levels of docosahexaenoic acid (DHA, C22:6 n-3) during in vitro maturation (IVM) has an effect on oocyte maturation and early embryo development in bovine. We showed that DHA had no effect on oocyte viability or maturation rate after 22 h IVM with or without 1, 10 or 100 μM DHA. Incubation of oocyte-cumulus complexes with 1 μM DHA during IVM significantly increased oocyte cleavage rate as compared to control and the > 4-cell embryo rate at day 2 after parthenogenetic activation. Supplementation with 1 μM DHA during IVM also induced a significant increase in the blastocyst rate at day 7 after in vitro fertilization as compared to control and tended to increase the number of cells in the blastocysts. On the contrary, 100 μM DHA significantly decreased the cleavage rate compared to control and the > 4-cell embryo rate at day 2 after PA. As was shown by real-time PCR, these effects were associated with a three-fold increase in expression level of FA transporter CD36 and a two-fold decrease of FA synthase FASN genes in cumulus cells (CC) of corresponding oocytes, after IVM in the presence of 100 μM DHA. Lower DHA concentrations had no effect on expression of those and other key lipid metabolism-related genes in CC. In conclusion, administration of a low physiological dose of DHA (1μM) during IVM may have beneficial effects on oocyte developmental competence in vitro with no effect on nuclear maturation and without affecting lipid metabolism gene expression in surrounding cumulus cells.