Background: Diabetes mellitus is a metabolic condition characterized by elevated blood glucose levels secondary to absolute impairment of insulin secretion. Maternal diabetes has been demonstrated to adversely affect pre implantation embryo development and pregnancy outcomes. Emerging evidence has implicated that these effects are associated with compromised oocyte competence. Several developme...

The high attrition rate of in vitro human embryo culture presents a major obstacle in the treatment of clinical infertility by in vitro fertilization (IVF). Physical and genetic requirements are not well understood for human or mouse preimplantation embryo development. Group culture is an established requirement for optimal embryo development in the mouse model. However, conventional microdrop ...

To date, pregnancy rates from oocytes matured in-vitro (IVM) have been much lower than those with in-vivo stimulated maturation. In order to improve the developmental potential of IVM oocytes, we studied the effect of three possible factors on pregnancy rates: (i) priming in vivo with FSH before aspiration; (ii) the time interval of maturation in vitro, and (iii) timing the aspiration by monito...

BACKGROUND In vitro maturation (IVM) of oocytes followed by fertilization in vitro (IVF) and embryo transfer offers an alternative to conventional IVF treatment that minimises drug administration and avoids ovarian hyperstimulation. However, the technique is less efficient than maturation in vivo. In the present study, a non-human primate model was used to address the hypothesis that the number...

BACKGROUND This study was aimed to assess the effects of angiotensin II (Ang II) supplementation to the In Vitro Maturation (IVM) and In Vitro Culture (IVC) media of vitrified-warmed ovine oocytes on their developmental competence and expression of Na(+)/K(+)/ATPase in resulting embryos. METHODS The slaughterhouse-derived immature oocytes (n=1069) were randomly distributed into four experimen...

objective: crocin is an active ingredient of saffron (crocus sativus l.) and its antioxidant properties have been previously investigated. this carotenoid scavenges free radicals and stimulates glutathione (gsh) synthesis; consequently, it may protect cells against oxidative stress. the aim of this research is to protect oocytes from oxidative stress by the addition of a natural source antioxid...

IVM refers to the maturation of immature oocytes in culture after their recovery from small antral follicles at the stage prior to selection and dominance. IVM requires little or no FSH in vivo and has been proposed as an alternative to conventional IVF, since it reduces the primary adverse effects caused by controlled ovarian stimulation, including the ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome. Moreov...

The aim of the present study was to evaluate the efficiency of different doses of epidermal growth factor (EGF) on maturation and fertilisation of bovine oocytes in vitro. A total of 1209 high quality oocytes (follicles 2-8 mm in diameter, with unexpanded cumulus cells) were obtained by aspiration from ovaries collected at a slaughterhouse. The oocytes were then assigned into 6 groups: 1, 10, 1...

The prevalence of diabetes is increasing worldwide with the trend of patients being young and creating a significant burden on health systems, including reproductive problems, but the effects of diabetes on embryo implantation are still poorly understood. Our study was to examine effects of diabetes on mouse embryo implantation, providing experimental basis for treating diabetes and its complic...

The overall objective of this work was to describe whether supplementing fibroblast growth factor 2 (FGF2) during in vitro maturation (IVM) affects cumulus and oocyte maturation and subsequent embryonic development. Supplementing 0.5, 5 or 50 ng/ml FGF2 to cumulus-oocyte complexes (COCs) increased the percentage of oocytes with extruded polar bodies after IVM. Supplementing FGF2 during COC matu...