The developmental competence of porcine parthenotes cultured in porcine zygote medium-3 (PZM-3) and North Carolina State University-23 (NCSU-23) media was investigated. After in vitro maturation oocytes were electro-activated, and the subsequent developmental competence, rates of apoptotic, fragmented and arrested embryos from the two media were evaluated. Also, the ratio of mRNA expression of Bcl-2 and Bax gene was determined. Results demonstrated that cleavage, blastocyst, hatched blastocyst rates, and blastocyst cell numbers were significantly higher in PZM-3 than in NCSU-23. The rate of fragmented embryos in PZM-3 was lower than in NCSU-23 on d 1 and 3 (P<0.05) while the percentage of arrested embryo was lower in PZM-3 than in NCSU-23 on d 4 and 5 (P<0.05). TUNEL positive signals were higher in NCSU-23 than in PZM-3 from d 3 to 7 (P<0.05). The ratios of Bcl-2 and Bax mRNA expression in embryos were higher on d 5 than on d 3 and 1 in PZM-3 (P<0.05). In contrast, the ratios of Bcl-2 and Bax mRNA expression in embryos on d 1 were higher than on d 3 and 5 in NCSU-23 (P<0.05). Additionally, the ratios of Bcl-2 and Bax mRNA expression in embryos in PZM-3 were higher than in NCSU-23 on d 3 and 5 (P<0.05). In conclusion, lower apoptotic embryo rates and down-regulating Bax together with up-regulating expression of Bcl-2 transcripts may be responsible for the better developmental competence of porcine parthenotes in PZM-3.