Upon fertilization, the genome of animal embryos remains transcriptionally inactive until the maternal-to-zygotic transition. At this time, the embryo takes control of its development and transcription begins. How the onset of zygotic transcription is regulated remains unclear. Here, we show that a dynamic competition for DNA binding between nucleosome-forming histones and transcription factors...

The effect of 5'-deoxy-5'-S-isobutylthioadenosine (SIBA) on polyamine biosynthesis has been studied by using cultured chick embryo fibroblasts. It has been shown that the drug inhibits the uptake of [14C]putrescine and its conversion into labelled spermidine or spermine. The inhibitory effect is reversed by removing the inhibitor after exposing the cells to the drug for 24 h. SIBA also caused a...

Development of uterine endometrial receptivity for implantation is orchestrated by cyclic steroid hormone-mediated signals. It is unknown if these signals are necessary for oviduct function in supporting fertilization and preimplantation development. Here we show that conditional knockout (cKO) mice lacking estrogen receptor α (ERα) in oviduct and uterine epithelial cells have impaired fertiliz...

2- to 4-cell and morula- to blastocyst-stage mouse embryos were cultured for 1 h in tritiated leucine at two specific activities and their subsequent development followed in vitro and in vivo (after transfer to recipients), respectively. 2- to 4-cell embryos that incorporated an average of 42 d.p.m. per embryo were impaired in their ability to develop to the morula and blastocyst stage. Recipie...

miR-196a is located in the posterior trunk and plays a role in limb development. Here we show that miR-196a is able to induce eye anomaly in Xenopus laevis. Microinjection of synthetic miRNA precursor molecule for mammalian miR-196a into Xenopus embryo is sufficient for miR-196a overexpression during early development. The misexpression of miR-196a in anterior embryo led to dose-dependent eye a...

Background. Assisted reproductive technology has been linked to the increased incidence of monozygotic twinning. It is of clinical importance due to the increased risk of complications in multiple pregnancies in general and in monozygotic twins in particular. Case. A 29-year-old female, nulligravida underwent her first IVF cycle. Three poor-quality cleavage stage embryos were transferred result...

One of the main objectives of Assisted Reproductive Technology (ART) is the reduction of the number of multiple pregnancies to obtain the highest number of full term pregnancies. Therefore, ART has to select the best quality embryos for transfer. This paper proposes several generalized linear models for the prediction of the implantation potential of embryos taking into account the morphologica...

Total protein synthesis in mouse cells but not in confluent chick embryo fibroblasts (CEF) is inhibited shortly after infection with vaccinia virus. This inhibition by the infecting virus is enhanced drastically if the mouse cells have been pretreated with homologous interferon pre­ parations. The enhanced reduction of protein synthesis also occurs if the cells are treated with actinomycin D an...

The ever-increasing speed and resolution of modern microscopes make the storage and post-processing of images challenging and prevent thorough statistical analyses in developmental biology. Here, instead of deploying massive storage and computing power, we exploit the spherical geometry of zebrafish embryos by computing a radial maximum intensity projection in real time with a 240-fold reductio...

In this study, 102 herpes simplex virus isolates were typed by cell culture selection (chicken embryo cells and guinea pig embryo cells [CE/GPE]), (E)-5-(2-bromovinyl)-2'-deoxyuridine (BVDU) sensitivity, plaque reduction neutralization, and indirect immunofluorescence staining techniques. The percentages of agreement between the typing methods were as follows: BVDU sensitivity versus CE/GPE, 99...