To elucidate whether the differentiation capacity of hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) is influenced by specific microenvironments, adult mouse bone marrow-derived HSCs were injected into mouse blastocysts. Embryos developing from injected blastocysts contained donor-derived cells at various developmental stages, and progeny of the stem cells were detected in hematopoietic tissues. Thus, HSCs der...

With single blastocyst transfer practice becoming more common in ART, there is a greater demand for a convenient and reliable cryostorage of surplus blastocysts. Vitrification has emerged in the last decade as an alternative promising substitute for slow freezing. Blastocysts represent a unique challenge in cryostorage due to their size, multicellular structure and presence of blastocoele. The ...

There is currently no objective, real-time and non-invasive method for evaluating the quality of mammalian embryos. In this study, we processed images of in vitro produced bovine blastocysts to obtain a deeper comprehension of the embryonic morphological aspects that are related to the standard evaluation of blastocysts. Information was extracted from 482 digital images of blastocysts. The resu...

The aim of the present study was to clarify the efficacy of the well of the well (WOW) culture system for a small number of embryos and the effect of number of adjacent embryos in a WOW dish on blastocyst development. In conventional droplet culture, embryos in the small-number group (5-6 embryos/droplet) showed low blastocyst development compared with a control group (25-26 embryos/droplet). H...

The complexity of organogenesis hinders in vitro generation of organs derived from a patient's pluripotent stem cells (PSCs), an ultimate goal of regenerative medicine. Mouse wild-type PSCs injected into Pdx1(-/-) (pancreatogenesis-disabled) mouse blastocysts developmentally compensated vacancy of the pancreatic "developmental niche," generating almost entirely PSC-derived pancreas. To examine ...

Objective To establish C57BL/6J embryonic stem (ES) cell lines with potential germline contribution Methods ES cells were isolated from blastocyst inner cell mass of C57BL/6J mice, and cultured for 15 passages, and then injected into blastococels of ICR mice blastocysts to establish chimeric mice. Results Three ES cell lines (mC57ES1,mC57ES3, mC57ES7) derived from the inner cell mass of C57BL/6...

The effect of in vitro preimplantation exposure of mouse embryos to N-methyl-N-nitrosourea (MNU) on development subsequent to embryo transfer into pseudopregnant surrogate mothers has been investigated. The offspring developed from mouse blastocysts exposed to MNU or to solvent were examined carefully for 1 year after birth and then examined with X-rays and complete autopsies. Metaphase chromos...

Preimplantation mouse blastocysts were dissected into inner cell mass (ICM) and trophoblast cells. These fragments were transferred to pseudo-pregnant mice which were left intact or ovariectomized. The latter group received progesterone to permit blastocysts and the dissected fragments to enter into quiescence, prior to injection of oestradiol to induce implantation. Trophoblastic vesicles, wit...

Teratomas were induced by the transfer of mouse blastocysts (C3H and 129/J strains) and egg-cylinders (C3H) to extra-uterine sites. C3H and 129/J blastocysts cultured in vitro for 4 or 5 days could also form teratomas in extra-uterine sites. Four transplantable teratomas, or teratocarcinomas, were derived from C3H embryos; embryoid bodies were derived from each line. The differentiative capacit...