Canine embryos (8-cell to blastocyst stages) frozen-thawed using the slow-freezing method with glycerol (four recipients) or dimethyl sulfoxide (three recipients) as a cryoprotectant and vitrified-warmed using the Cryotop method (five recipients) were surgically transferred into the unilateral uterine horn of recipient bitches. As a result, the morphology of embryos frozen-thawed using the slow...

background: the cells of mammalian female reproductive tract have been widely used for in vitro fertilization (ivf). this study was designed to study the effects of oviductal epithelial cells (oecs) and their conditioned medium during ivf on subsequent embryonic development and the relative abundance of zygote arrest 1 (zar1) transcript in ovine zygotes. methods: the in vitro matured ovine oocy...

The nutritional requirements of mammalian embryos changes throughout pre-implantation period, coincident with changes in the secretion of the female reproductive tract. Therefore, it has been suggested that sequential culture media may support nutritional requirements for optimal growth of the mammalian embryos. In this study, we investigated the effect of two different concentrations (10 or 10...

The first lineage decision during mammalian development is the establishment of the trophectoderm (TE) and the inner cell mass (ICM). The caudal-type homeodomain protein Cdx2 is implicated in the formation and maintenance of the TE in the mouse. However, the role of CDX2 during early embryonic development in primates is unknown. Here, we demonstrated that CDX2 mRNA levels were detectable in rhe...

BACKGROUND Vitrification has been shown as one of the most effective methods of cryopreservation for mammalian embryos. However, there is no consensus which stage of embryonic development is the most appropriate for vitrification with subsequent maximal development after thawing. This study was carried out to explore and compare the effect(s) of vitrification on mouse 2-cell, 4-cell, 8-cell, mo...

Protein phosphatase 2A regulatory subunit B55α (PP2A-B55α) has been studied in mitosis. However, its functions in mammalian meiosis and early embryonic development remain unknown. Here, we report that PP2A-B55α is critical for mouse oocyte meiosis and preimplantation embryo development. Knockdown of PP2A-B55α in oocytes led to abnormal asymmetric division, disordered spindle dynamics, defects i...

During preimplantation development, the embryo must establish totipotency and enact the earliest differentiation choices, processes that involve extensive chromatin modification. To identify novel developmental regulators, we screened for genes that are preferentially transcribed in the pluripotent inner cell mass (ICM) of the mouse blastocyst. Genes that encode chromatin remodeling factors wer...

Mammalian preimplantation development, which is the period extending from fertilization to implantation, results in the formation of a blastocyst with three distinct cell lineages. Only one of these lineages, the epiblast, contributes to the embryo itself, while the other two lineages, the trophectoderm and the primitive endoderm, become extra-embryonic tissues. Significant gains have been made...

The cryopreservation of mammalian oocytes and embryos has application to preserve genetic diversity and for in vitro fertilization protocols in humans. To date, cryopreservation techniques have been used in a variety of species, including rabbits [1, 2], cattle [3, 4], horses [5, 6], cats [7, 8], mice [9, 10] and ferrets [11], among others. However, because of the biological uniqueness of porci...