Liver receptor homolog 1 (Lrh1, also known as Nr5a2) belongs to the orphan nuclear receptor superfamily and has diverse functions in development, metabolism, and cell differentiation and death. Lrh1 regulates the expression of Oct4, which is a key factor of early embryonic differentiation. However, the role of Lrh1 in early development of mammalian embryo is unknown. In the present study, the l...

The growth and survival of the preimplantation mammalian embryo may be regulated by several autocrine trophic factors that have redundant or overlapping actions. One of the earliest trophic factors to be produced is embryo-derived platelet-activating factor (1-O-alky-2-acetyl-sn-glyceryl-3-phosphocholine). The addition of platelet-activating factor to embryo culture media exerted a trophic effe...

Our previous studies demonstrated that maternal (oocyte derived) follistatin (FST) expression is positively associated with bovine oocyte competence and exogenous follistatin treatment during the pre-compaction period of development (d 1-3 post insemination) is stimulatory to bovine early embryogenesis in vitro [blastocyst rates and cell numbers/allocation to trophectoderm (TE)]. In the present...

OBJECTIVE To document the risk of in vitro monochorionic dizygotic twin formation in the implementation of a program of blastocyst biopsy with preimplantation genetic screening (PGS). DESIGN Case report. SETTING Private infertility laboratory. PATIENT(S) Prospective PGS patients with intracytoplasmic sperm injection-derived, group-cultured blastocysts over a 3-year period. INTERVENTION(...

Mammalian embryogenesis is a dynamic process involving gene expression and mechanical forces between proliferating cells. The exact nature of these interactions, which determine the lineage patterning of the trophectoderm and endoderm tissues occurring in a highly regulated manner at precise periods during the embryonic development, is an area of debate. We have developed a computational modeli...

This investigation examined frozen cycle outcomes with the transfer of a single thawed blastocyst. It also aimed to determine if the suggested model could aid in achieving a better understanding of factors that influence success with frozen blastocyst transfer. A retrospective analysis was conducted of single frozen embryo transfer cycles carried out at the Cleveland Clinic Fertility Centre in ...

Transfer at the blastocyst stage has been proposed to increase the pregnancy rates after in-vitro fertilization (IVF) and embryo transfer. In the first period of experiments, culture in a single medium, from fertilization to blastocyst led to disappointing results: low blastocyst formation rates and low implantation rates per blastocyst transferred. Then the period of co-culture began (starting...

This work was designed to investigate the fine structures of the rat and the rabbit blastocysts with both transmission and scanning electron micro scopes. The cells of the trophoblast form a single layer beneath the intact zona pellucida and the inner cell mass and blastocystic cavity are formed. In the blastocyst on day 5 to 6 of pregnancy, the trophoblast cells were differentiated from the in...

BACKGROUND In order to optimize blastocyst cryopreservation, vitrification was introduced as the routine procedure instead of slow freezing. The outcome of a closed blastocyst vitrification system was evaluated in relation to the blastocyst score before cryopreservation in single embryo transfers (SETs). METHODS Supernumerary blastocysts of IVF/ICSI patients with a fresh Day 5 transfer were v...

Retinoids are recognized as important regulators of vertebrate development, cell differentiation, and tissue function. Previous studies, performed both in vivo and in vitro, indicate that retinoids influence several reproductive events, including follicular development, oocyte maturation and early embryonic development. The present study evaluated in vitro effects of retinol addition to media c...