The UDP-glucuronosyltransferase (UGT) enzymes are critical for regulating nutrients, hormones, and endobiotics, as well as for detoxifying xenobiotics. Human and murine fetuses are known to express glucuronidation enzymes, but there are currently no data prior to implantation. Here we addressed this gap in knowledge and tested whether Ugt enzymes are already present in preimplantationstage embr...

Cryopreservation is known for its marked deleterious effects on embryonic health. Bovine compact morulae were vitrified or slow-frozen, and post-warm morulae were cultured to the expanded blastocyst stage. Blastocysts developed from vitrified and slow-frozen morulae were subjected to microarray analysis and compared with blastocysts developed from unfrozen control morulae for differential gene ...

Background: Apoptosis is induced by several factors and has an important role in embryonic development. Since vitrification-induced embryonic damages could be resulted from an increase in apoptosis occurrence,the aim of the present study is to investigate the effect of vitrification on induction of apoptosis in blastocysts. Materials and Methods: For this purpose 20 balb-c mice superovulated an...

Objective Apigenin is a plant-derived compound belong to the flavonoids category and has the protective effects on different cells. The aim was to evaluate the effect of apigenin on the number of viable and apoptotic blastomeres, the zona pellucida (ZP) thickness and the hatching rate of preimplantation mouse embryos exposed to H2O2 and actinomycin D. MaterialsAndMethods 420 two-cell embryos we...

Abstract Study question What is the degree of concordance between Noninvasive Preimplantation Genetic Testing for Aneuploidies (NIPGT-A) versus genetic analysis whole embryo? Summary answer Cell free DNA ploidy evaluated by NIPGT-A presents very good that from embryo cells (Cohen's Kappa coefficient: 0.84). known already After many years using PGT-A, there are still concerns, such as risks inva...

OBJECTIVE The aim of this study was to investigate associations between the morphology score of blastocysts and blastocoele re-expansion speed after warming with clinical outcomes, which could assist in making correct and cost-effective decisions regarding the appropriate time to vitrify blastocysts and to transfer vitrified-warmed blastocysts. METHODS A total of 327 vitrified-warmed two-blas...

Co-culture of human embryos (n = 384 cycles) to the blastocyst stage using Vero cell monolayers was carried out between August 1995 and December 1997. A total of 2868 zygotes were co-cultured and 1027 embryos reached the blastocyst stage (blastocyst formation rate 35.8%). The blastocysts were frozen in 43.7% of patients. A mean of 1.8 blastocysts was transferred per patient and 95 pregnancies w...

Aneuploidy has been well-documented in blastocyst embryos, but prior studies have been limited in scale and/or lack mechanistic data. We previously reported preclinical validation of microarray 24-chromosome preimplantation genetic screening in a 24-h protocol. The method diagnoses chromosome copy number, structural chromosome aberrations, parental source of aneuploidy and distinguishes certain...

STUDY QUESTION Does Let-7a have a functional role in modulating dicer expression to activate dormant mouse blastocysts for implantation? SUMMARY ANSWER Let-7a post-transcriptionally regulates dicer expression altering microRNA expression to affect the implantation competency of the activated blastocysts. WHAT IS KNOWN ALREADY The Let-7a microRNA is up-regulated during blastocyst dormancy an...

Morphological changes of cultured bovine blastocysts during hatching were observed using time-lapse videomicrography in order to investigate the patterns of the hatching process that occurred in the blastocysts and to determine whether the hatching patterns differed between blastocysts developed from fresh and cryopreserved embryos. Compacted morulae (CMs) were collected from superovulation-tre...