BACKGROUND In MII oocytes showing difficult oolemma breakage, ICSI can cause an increase in the degeneration rate. This may be overcome by laser-assisted ICSI using a 5-10 micro m opening in the zona pellucida for injection. However, such a small opening might impair the hatching process, especially if assisted hatching is applied in addition. In order to prevent this, the present study used ro...

Boar spermatozoa were prepared for intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI) by two different treatments to facilitate sperm chromatin decondensation and improve fertilisation rates after ICSI in pigs: spermatozoa were either frozen and thawed without cryoprotectants, or treated with progesterone. Morphological changes of the sperm heads after the treatments were examined and then the activation ...

Objective: To report a successful pregnancy after transfer of embryos derived from oocytes activated by calcium ionophore after intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI) with round-headed sperms and aneuploid screening using aCGH. Design: Case report Setting: Private IVF clinic. Patient: A 28-year-old patients and her 31-year-old husband, diagnosed with 100% globozoospermia, underwent ICSI, oocyt...

The role and interaction of microtubules and microfilaments, which are important for progressing the events during oocyte maturation and activation, are not well understood. This study was designed to examine the cytoskeletal changes of the porcine oocyte activated electrically or by sperm with relation to the effects of oocyte aging and the paternal and maternal contributions. During electric ...

The two questions posed by Tesarik (1998) and Swann et al. (1998) on the nature of sperm factor are: (i) if glucosamine6-phosphate deaminase is not the ‘so-called oscillogen’, as shown by the recombinant studies of Wolosker et al. (1998), what is the nature of sperm factor?; and (ii) is there a dual mechanism for oocyte activation involving signals from soluble sperm factors together with signa...

17 Introduction 18 Ovarian stimulation 20 In vitro fertilization (IVF)/intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI) 23 Immature sperm conception 25 Egg donation and surrogacy 28 Oocyte maturation 28 Embryo culture 30 Assisted hatching 31 Cryopreservation 32 Preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) 34 Cytoplasmic donation and mitochondrial DNA (mDNA) transfer 37 Fertility preservation 39 Conclusion 41

The original debate article proposed the use of "semi-cloning" as a viable method for assisted reproduction. This debate counters the proposal as being biologically unsound. Given the fundamental limitations of chromosomal segregation and genomic imprinting, the notion of using the MII oocyte to drive haploidization of a somatic cell genome and thereby obtain a substitute for authentic gametes ...

We describe the first case of bacteremia due to Actinomyces urogenitalis. Bacteremia was secondary to a tubo-ovarian abscess following transvaginal oocyte retrieval. Identification was established by matrix-assisted desorption ionization-time of flight mass spectrometry (MALDI-TOF MS) and confirmed by 16S rRNA gene sequencing. A. urogenitalis should be considered as a potential causative agent ...

Intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI) has resulted in pregnancy and birth for many couples, including those with severe male factor infertility. However, even after ICSI, complete failure of fertilization occurs in 1-3% of cycles. Most cases occur due to low number of mature oocytes, failure of oocyte activation or non-availability of appropriate spermatozoa for injection. Given the significa...

One of the biggest prerequisites for pregnancy is the fertilization step, where a human haploid spermatozoon interacts and penetrates one haploid oocyte in order to produce the diploid zygote. Although fertilization is defined by the presence of two pronuclei and the extraction of the second polar body the process itself requires preparation of both gametes for fertilization to take place at a ...