background: in vitro maturation (ivm) is a promising treatment option for certain infertile women. nowadays, with the aid of polscope, it has become possible to evaluate zona pellucida (zp) characteristics as a parameter of oocyte quality. moreover, quality of oocytes can be influenced by many factors, such as patient’s age. the polscope system is a non-invasive technique to assess birefringent...

We report an imaging method for fast, sensitive analysis of the orientation of fluorescent molecules by employing a liquid-crystal based universal polarizer in the optical path of a wide-field light microscope. We developed specific acquisition and processing algorithms for measuring the anisotropy and for correcting artifacts caused by fluorescence bleaching, background light, and differential...

BACKGROUND The LC Polscope facilitates visualization of the meiotic spindle in human oocyte. This study aimed to investigate meiotic spindle assembly in correlation to time elapsed after HCG administration, and to determine whether spindle imaging may serve to indicate the likelihood of fertilization and embryo cleavage. METHODS Metaphase II (MII) oocytes from 103 couples who were being treat...

Datasets from a slow carbonate vapor diffusion and mineral precipitation protocol for Dictyostelium ECM and cellulose stalks show examples for composite materials obtained by an in vitro approach, which differs substantially from the in vivo approach reported in The Journal of Structural Biology, doi: 10.1016/j.jsb.2016.03.015 [1]. Methods for obtaining the datasets include bright field transmi...

Background: In vitro maturation (IVM) is a promising treatment option for certain infertile women. Nowadays, with the aid of the Polscope, it has become possible to evaluate zona pellucida (ZP) and spindle as parameters of oocyte quality. The goal was to investigate the relationship between the presence of the meiotic spindle and ZP birefringence with morphology of the in vivo and in vitro matu...

Background: The meiotic spindle plays an important role in the oocyte during chromosome alignment and separation at meiosis. The zona pellucid (ZP) is a dynamic matrix composed of filaments with the properties that might reflect the history of oocyte cytoplasmic maturation. Since, spindle and ZP in living oocytes are highly birefringent, their structures can be viewed noninvasively by using a P...

Background Polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOs) is one of the most common causes of infertility in women of reproductive age. Currently, one of the best therapeutic options for PCOs patients is ICSI. Moreover, IVM can be a useful technique for women with PCOs who are at the risk of ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome (OHSS). On the other hand, the oocyte quality can be a determining factor for outc...

OBJECTIVE To examine the effects of different thermodynamic control systems on the temperature stability of human eggs during in vitro manipulation, with the integrity of meiotic spindles imaged using the LC-PolScope (Cambridge Research & Instrumentation, Inc., Woburn, MA). DESIGN We performed intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI) and/or imaging of eggs with the temperature regulated by thr...