BACKGROUND Assisted hatching (AH) in fresh embryo transfer (ET) cycles increases the implantation and pregnancy rates, especially in women with a poor prognosis, repeated implantation failures and in older women. Little information exists in the literature regarding the role of AH in frozen-thawed embryo transfer (FET) cycles. METHODS Embryos were cryopreserved at the cleavage stage. On the d...

Our purpose is to explore whether anti-dsDNA antibody, which was demonstrated to enter living cells and induced apoptosis, could adversely affect reproductive outcomes. A total of 259 women receiving the in vitro fertilization-embryo transfer (IVF) cycle were enrolled in this study, including 52 women with positive ANA and anti-dsDNA (ANA+/anti-dsDNA+ group), 86 women with positive ANA and nega...

The assisted reproductive technologies (ARTs) as tailored to the production of rhesus monkeys at the Oregon National Primate Research Center (ONPRC) are described. Efficient fertilization of mature oocytes recovered by aspiration from females subjected to follicular stimulation was achieved with fresh or frozen sperm by intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI). Embryo development to the early cl...

Embryo quality and embryo selection are critical criteria for embryo transfer and subsequently success of assisted reproductive technologies (ART). Transfer of good quality embryos is associated with increased implantation, pregnancy and live birth rates and also decreased pregnancy loss and prenatal complications in comparison with transfer of embryos with impaired quality. Furthermore, advanc...

Cryopreservation is the long-term storage of viable cells/tissue in liquid nitrogen. The present study was conducted to freeze 8-cell- to morula-stage mouse embryos from the ACTREC Laboratory Animal Facility using a "slow freezing and fast revival" method. In all, 4,088 embryos were collected from 495 donor female mice of ten different strains. An average recovery of 8 embryos per donor mouse w...