Human embryos for hESC derivation are often donated at the cleavage stage and of reduced quality. Poor quality embryos have lower efficiency for hESC derivation. However, cleavage stage mouse embryos develop into higher quality expanded blastocysts if they are cultured with insulin, suggesting that this approach could be used to improve hESC derivation from poor quality cleavage stage embryos. ...

BACKGROUND The early preimplantation embryo relies on mRNA and protein from the oocyte to detect DNA damage and activate DNA repair, cell cycle arrest or apoptosis. Expression of some repair genes has been detected in mammalian oocytes and embryos; however, little is known about DNA repair gene expression in human blastocysts. In this study, DNA repair gene expression was investigated in human ...

Culture of in-vivo-developed mouse blastocysts in a simple culture medium based on a balanced salt solution supplemented with carbohydrates for 3 h significantly perturbed embryo metabolism. Maximal perturbation occurred after just 6 h of culture. Similarly, culture of rat blastocysts in a simple culture medium for 3 h also resulted in perturbed metabolism. Cultured mouse and rat blastocysts bo...

BACKGROUND In IVF-ICSI cycles with single embryo transfer (SET), embryo selection for transfer is of crucial importance. The present study aimed to define which embryo parameters might be related to the implantation potential of advanced blastocysts. METHODS Overall, in 203 cycles with SET, developmental characteristics of 93 implanted (group A) and 110 non-implanted (group B) advanced blasto...

BACKGROUND Indisputable population exposure to widespread electromagnetic fields, has grown concerns over the probable health effects of these fields. OBJECTIVE The present study was aimed to examine the possible effects of 50 Hz extremely low frequency electromagnetic field (ELF-EMF) exposure on the number and quality of mice blastocysts. MATERIALS AND METHODS In present study, 66 NMRI pre...

We investigated the effects of exposure time and concentration of trichostatin A (TSA) on in vitro development and quality of bovine SCNT embryos. At multiple time points, the relative expression of genes related to pluripotency and reprogramming was analyzed in order to assess the quality of preimplantation embryos cultured in media with TSA using real-time PCR. Development into blastocysts wa...

The reaggregation and subsequent development of a range of disaggregated embryos has been examined: 1. Following complete dissociation embryos from 8-cell to late blastocyst reaggregated and developed to form morphologically normal blastocysts, even when blastomeres of two different developmental stages were present in the reaggregate. 2. Dissociated mid-blastocysts could also reaggregate to fo...

STUDY QUESTION What is the effect of artificial shrinkage by laser-induced collapse before vitrification on the implantation potential after transfer of vitrified-warmed blastocysts? SUMMARY ANSWER The artificial shrinkage by laser-induced collapse did not significantly increase the implantation rate per transferred collapsed blastocyst (37.6%) compared with non-collapsed blastocysts (28.9%) ...

The present study investigated mRNA expression profiles of bovine oocytes and blastocysts by using a cross-species hybridization approach employing an array consisting of 15,529 human cDNAs as probe, thus enabling the identification of conserved genes during human and bovine preimplantation development. Our analysis revealed 419 genes that were expressed in both oocytes and blastocysts. The exp...

To better understand X-chromosome reactivation (XCR) during early development, we analyzed transcriptomic data obtained from bovine male and female blastocysts derived by in-vitro fertilization (IVF) or somatic-cell nuclear transfer (SCNT). We found that X-linked genes were upregulated by almost two-fold in female compared with male IVF blastocysts. The upregulation of X-linked genes in female ...