the effect of all-trans retinol on in vitro mouse embryo's developmental competence

background: all-trans retinol is a biological antioxidantscavenging the ros in the cell culture. objectives: this studywas conducted to investigate the effect of all-trans retinol infertilization and culture medium on mouse embryo's developmentalcompetence. methods: this study was designed into twoexperiments. in the first experiment, in vitro mature oocytes wereco-cultured with sperm in fertilization medium containing differentconcentrations of all-trans retinol (0, 1, 5, and 10 μm). afterfertilization, zygotes in each group were separately cultured in czbculture medium for 5 days to the blastocyst stage. in the secondexperiment, in vitro produced zygotes were cultured in czb culturemedium containing different concentrations of all-trans retinol (0,1, 5, and 10 μm) for 5 days to the blastocyst stage. results: in thefirst experiment, the blastocyst formation rate significantlyincreased by 5 μm in all-trans retinol, which was more than those ofthe other groups. also, percentage of grade one embryos wassignificantly higher in the presence of 5 μm all-trans retinol thanthose in the presence of 0 and 1 μm all-trans retinol. in the secondexperiment, different concentrations of all-trans retinol could notalter blastocyst formation rate; however, the percentage of gradeone embryo was higher in the presence of 10 μm all-trans retinolthan that of the control group. conclusions: these resultsshowed that supplementation of fertilization medium with 5 μm alltransretinol could improve mouse embryo's development andmorphology. on the other hand, supplementation of embryo culturemedium can improve mouse embryo morphology without anyeffect on embryo developmental competence.