Abstract Most early human embryos contain aneuploid cells. Aneuploidy often arises during the mitotic divisions of embryo, but its origin remains elusive. Human zygotes that cluster their nucleoli at pronuclear interface are thought to be more likely develop into healthy euploid embryos. I will present data showing how parental genomes with in each pronucleus and bovine zygotes. Parental genome...

Y‑27632 is a specific inhibitor of Rho‑associated protein kinases (ROCKs), which are downstream effectors of Rho GTPase. The present study aimed to determine the effect of the specific ROCK inhibitor, Y‑27632, on fresh human embryos and on single blastomeres obtained from discarded human embryos. A total of 784 poor‑quality embryos were included, of which 526 were allocated to blastocyst cultur...

There is renewed interest in using animal oocytes to reprogram human somatic cells. Here we compare the reprogramming of human somatic nuclei using oocytes obtained from animal and human sources. Comparative analysis of gene expression in morula-stage embryos was carried out using single-embryo transcriptome amplification and global gene expression analyses. Genomic DNA fingerprinting and PCR a...

Our understanding of human pre-implantation development is limited by the availability of human embryos and cannot completely rely on mouse studies. Petropoulos et al. now provide an extensive transcriptome analysis of a large number of human pre-implantation embryos at single-cell resolution, revealing previously unrecognized features unique to early human development.

BACKGROUND Previous studies on mammalian preimplantation embryos have suggested an association between caspase activation, blastomere fragmentation and apoptosis. However, some reports on human embryos questioned the causal relationship between blastomere fragmentation and apoptosis, and information about the presence and activity of caspases in human embryos is lacking. METHODS A fluorochrom...

BACKGROUND E(epithelial)-cadherin is a vital cell adhesion protein that plays a critical role in morphogenesis. Previous studies of E-cadherin distribution in human embryos have produced equivocal results. METHODS Immunocytochemistry in conjunction with laser scanning confocal microscopy was used to detect E-cadherin in 97 human cleavage stage embryos and 35 blastocysts from normal and abnorm...

Transfer of human embryos at the blastocyst stage may offer considerable benefits including an increased implantation rate and a decreased risk of multiple pregnancies; however, blastocyst culture requires an efficient and reliable in-vitro embryo culture system. In this study, the effect of the Well-of-the-Well (WOW) system consisting of microwells formed on the bottom of the culture dish was ...

Synopsis – Developments in in vitro fertilization techniques and recombinant DNA technology are improving the technical feasibility of genetically manipulating human embryos. The combination of these technologies allows a new form of eugenic selection to be practiced and some IVF practitioners and researchers are advocating that genetic disorders can be eradicated from future generations in the...

Genetic aberrations are commonly seen in human preimplantation embryos. Non-disjunction and premature division of a chromosome are common in both meiosis and mitosis divisions. The expected result for meiotic aneuploidies is full aneuploidy in the later stages whereas mosaicism is the most frequent event in the cleavage and blastocyst stages. The main causes for mosaicism are post-zygotic event...

The use of human embryos for research on embryonic stem (ES) cells is currently high on the ethical and political agenda in many countries. Despite the potential benefit of using human ES cells in the treatment of disease, their use remains controversial because of their derivation from early embryos. Here, we address some of the ethical issues surrounding the use of human embryos and human ES ...