Objective(s): To evaluated the effects of melatonin on early embryo competence and the expression rate of the primary implantation receptors (ErbB1 and ErbB4). Materials and Methods: Two-cell mouse embryos were cultured in 3 groups: simple media, melatonin-treated (10-9 M melatonin) and Luzindole-treated (10-9 M luzindole). Then, the rate of ErbB1 and ErbB4 gene and protein expression, the leve...

Whether or not maternal thrombophilia due to the most common gain-of-function mutations in factor V (factor V Leiden) and prothrombin gene (G20210A prothrombin), has a role in favouring or contrasting the embryo implantation after assisted reproductive procedures is a matter of debate. Only few studies are available on this issue. On one hand, it has been suggested that carriers of factor V Lei...

Recent evidence shows that through best standard operating procedures, chances of successful pregnancy and live birth delivery rates are less than 50%. Repeated Implantation Failure (RIF) following transfer of one or more numbers of cleavage or blastocyst stage embryos is the main cause of low pregnancy rate in IVF cycles; therefore, finding the causes and modifying treatment protocols to incre...

Preparation for embryo implantation requires extensive adaptation of the uterine microenvironment. This process consists of cell proliferation and cell differentiation resulting in the transformation of endometrial fibroblasts into a new type of cell called decidual cell. In the present study, we followed the space-time distribution of versican and hyaluronan (HA) in different tissues of the ut...

The present study was designed to investigate the efficacy and mechanism of acupuncture treatment on embryo implantation failure in rats. The pregnant rats were randomized into normal group (N), implantation failure group (M), acupuncture treatment group (A), and progestin treatment group (W). The embryo implantation failure model was established by mifepristone. Efficacy of acupuncture treatme...

BACKGROUND We aimed to examine the efficacy of using an embryo transfer medium enriched with hyaluronan (HA) to improve implantation in a selected group of patients aged <43 years with repeated (>4) implantation failures after IVF-embryo transfer. METHODS About 101 patients, meeting our selection criteria, were randomly allocated to undergo embryo transfer either using our routine embryo tran...

Pregnancy loss is a serious social and medical issue, with one important cause associated with aberrant embryo implantation during early pregnancy. However, whether and how the process of embryo implantation is affected by environmental factors such as stress-induced sympathetic activation remained elusive. Here we report an unexpected, transient effect of β(2)-adrenoreceptor (β(2)-AR) activati...

Understanding the function of T cells at the maternal-fetal interface remains one of the most difficult problems in reproductive immunology. A great deal of work over the last two decades has led to the view that the T cells that populate the decidua have important roles in both normal and pathological pregnancies, but the exact nature of these roles has remained unclear. Indeed, the old assump...

It is becoming increasingly clear that cells are remarkably sensitive to the biophysical cues of their microenvironment and that these cues play a significant role in influencing their behaviors. In this study, we investigated whether the early pre-implantation embryo is sensitive to mechanical cues, i.e. the elasticity of the culture environment. To test this, we have developed a new embryo cu...