The last three decades have seen considerable progress in the development of culture media for ART and infertility treatment. Basic research on the metabolism of mammalian preimplantation embryos demonstrated the specific needs in the evolving stage of the embryo growing in vitro. Two different philosophies led to two different culture strategies for human preimplantation embryos: the 'back-to-...

Current human fertilization in vitro (IVF) bypasses the female oviduct and manually inseminates, fertilizes and cultivates embryos in a static microdrop containing appropriate chemical compounds. A microfluidic microchannel system for IVF is considered to provide an improved in-vivo-mimicking environment to enhance the development in a culture system for an embryo before implantation. We demons...

OBJECTIVE To detect hCG in spent embryo culture media at day 2 after intracytoplasmic sperm injection and to assess the relationship of hCG to embryo development. DESIGN Experimental study. SETTING Fertility center and clinical diagnostic laboratory. SAMPLE(S) A total of 102 spent culture media from day 2 human embryos and corresponding unexposed media for blank control. INTERVENTION(S)...

Embryo transfer refers to a step in the process of assisted reproduction in which one or several embryos are placed into the uterus of a female with the intent to establish a pregnancy. Currently this biotechnology has become one of the prominent high businesses worldwide. This technique, which is often used in connection with in vitro fertilization (IVF), has widely been used in animals or hum...

In vitro culture of pre-implantation embryos is a key-step in Assisted Reproductive Technologies (ART) protocols. In present work we examine the potential of microfluidic devices for pre-implantation human embryo culture, in comparison with conventional droplet-based culture (control). Donated frozen day-4 embryos are cultured for 72 h after thawing in both formats, and graded at four different...

conclusions our underlying hypothesis is that recapitulating the three-dimensional early embryonic structure, in order to reproduce better in vitro the three-dimensional morphogenetic-like re-arrangements, would improve cells differentiation, when in vivo transplanted; moreover, it could be used as a simplified cancer disease model and reliable drug evaluation method as well. results the proces...

introduction: antibiotic supplements are regularly used in neuronal culture media to control contamination however, they can interfere with the neuronal excitability and affect electrophysiological properties. therefore, in this study, the effect of penicillin/streptomycin supplements on the spontaneous electrophysiological activity of hippocampal pyramidal neurons was examined. methods: electr...

BACKGROUND There have been concerns about validity and accuracy of the measurement of sHLA-G in embryo culture supernatants. In this systematic review, we quantified the diagnostic accuracy of sHLA-G for predicting the ability to achieve clinical pregnancy in women who are undergoing infertility treatment. METHODS Medline and Embase were searched up to 7 September 2007, for full English and n...

A critical point in mammalian development is when the early embryo implants into its mother's uterus. This event has historically been difficult to study due to the fact that it occurs within the maternal tissue and therefore is hidden from view. In this review, we discuss how the mouse embryo is prepared for implantation and the molecular mechanisms involved in directing and coordinating this ...