backgrund: imprinted genes are a unique subset of few genes, which have been differentially methylated region (dmr) in a parental origin-dependent manner during gametogenesis, and these genes are highly protected during pre-implantation epigenetic reprogramming. several studies heve shown that the particular vulnerability of imprinting genes during suboptimal pre- and peri-conception microenvir...

Vitrification is commonly used in the cryopreservation of mammalian blastocysts to overcome the temporal and spatial limitations of embryo transfer. Previous studies have shown that the implantation ability of vitrified blastocysts is impaired and that microRNAs (miRNAs) regulate the critical genes for embryo implantation. However, little information is available about the effect of vitrificati...

To evaluate the effect of melatonin supplementation in maturation medium for human 'rescue IVM' and investigate differences in transcriptomic profile of blastocysts developed from oocytes matured in vitro with/without melatonin treatment and in vivo, a total of 314 GV oocytes and 320 MI oocytes were collected from 200 patients younger than 35 years old undergoing ICSI cycle. The oocytes were ra...

horbar; Three experiments were undertaken to investigate the effect of some factors on survival and viability of bovine blastocysts produced in vitro in serum-free oviduct-conditioned media. In vitro survival to freezing was higher for blastocysts appearing on days 6 and 7 than for day 8 blastocysts (67 and 50% hatching rate vs 12%). Transfer success of day 8 blastocysts to recipient heifers wa...

Background: The efficiency of in vitro fertilization (IVF) is still low to be developed to blastocyst stage probably because of environmental conditions. It is likely that in vitro environment can not exactly mimic in vivo environment due to differences in media, metabolic content, atmospheric composition, temperature and pH. Therefore it may affect embryo quality by changing in embryo gene exp...

Is the timing of vitrification after trophectoderm (TE) biopsy associated with successful implantation and pregnancy after the embryo transfer of blastocysts subjected to preimplantation genetic screening (PGS)? In this retrospective cohort study, 1329 blastocysts from 223 patients were subjected to TE biopsy for performing array comparative genomic hybridization (CGH) tests. The PGS and frozen...

Although improved outcomes of IVF after transfer of blastocysts has been reported (1, 2), it remains uncertain which blastocyst can develop into a viable fetus. At present, expansion of the blastocyst is the most practical selection criterion. However, if extended culture of embryos produces many expanded-stage blastocysts, it is not easy to decide which blastocysts to transfer (Fig. 1A). In ad...

Mammalian parthenogenesis could not survive but aborted during mid-gestation, presumably because of lack of paternal gene expression. To understand the molecular mechanisms underlying the failure of parthenogenesis at early stages of development, we performed global gene expression profiling and functional analysis of parthenogenetic blastocysts in comparison with those of blastocysts from norm...

OBJECTIVE To evaluate and compare the laboratory and clinical outcomes of vitrification with slow-freezing method for cryopreservation of embryos and blastocysts in an in-vitro fertilisation programme. DESIGN Retrospective analysis of all the 104 cycles of frozen embryo and blastocyst replacements from 2003 to 2008 and all the 149 cycles with embryos or blastocysts for vitrification from 2006...

The expression of XIST, G6PD, HPRT, ZFX and ZFY were investigated in in-vitro produced bovine embryos. Transcripts of these genes were assayed by RT-PCR in pools of pre-compaction stage embryos and sexed pools of morulae and blastocysts. The expression of XIST, G6PD, HPRT and ZFX in female and male morulae and blastocysts were compared using a semi-quantitative RT-PCR. G6PD, HPRT and ZFX transc...