BACKGROUND During development, embryos decode maternal morphogen inputs into highly precise zygotic gene expression. The discovery of the morphogen Bicoid and its profound effect on developmental programming in the Drosophila embryo has been a cornerstone in understanding the decoding of maternal inputs. Bicoid has been described as a classical morphogen that forms a concentration gradient alon...

BACKGROUND: The sperm penetration assay (SPA) is used to predict the fertilizing capacity of sperm. Thus, some programs rely on SPA scores to formulate insemination plans in conjunction with in-vitro fertilization (IVF) cycles. The purpose of this study was to evaluate if a relationship exists between SPA scores and polyspermy rates during conventional IVF cycles. METHODS: A total of 1350 conse...

We have previously identified embryo-specific (emb) mutations that resulted in maize kernels containing abnormal embryos with normal-appearing endosperm among the progeny of active Robertson's Mutator stocks. Our rationale for the mutant screen described here is that it should be possible to produce ethyl methane sulfonate (EMS)-induced emb mutations at a frequency higher than that obtained by ...

Talpid3 is a classical chicken mutant with abnormal limb patterning and malformations in other regions of the embryo known to depend on Hedgehog signaling. We combined the ease of manipulating chicken embryos with emerging knowledge of the chicken genome to reveal directly the basis of defective Hedgehog signal transduction in talpid3 embryos and to identify the talpid3 gene. We show in several...

introduction: the incidence of chromosomal abnormalities was investigated in untransfered embryos reuslted from in vitro fertilization (ivf) or intracytoplasmic sperm injection (icsi) procedures. materials and methods: a total of 238 embryos of varying morphology between the pronucleated stage and 8-cells were analysed. the cytogenetic method of dyban was used for chromosome preparation. embryo...

The effects of abscisic acid, zeatin, and gibberellic acid on the development of somatic embryos from cultured cells of caraway (Carum carvi L.) were observed.Somatic embryos complete development on a basal medium without exogenous hormones, but some are subject to developmental abnormalities including malformed cotyledons and accessory embryos. Both zeatin and gibberellic acid, especially in c...

Auxin and polar auxin transport have been implicated in controlling embryo development in land plants. The goal of these studies was to determine if auxin and auxin transport are also important during the earliest stages of development in embryos of the brown alga Fucus distichus. Indole-3-acetic acid (IAA) was identified in F. distichus embryos and mature tissues by gas chromatography-mass spe...

Many maternal disorders that modify the embryonic microenvironment, such as a change in osmolarity, can affect development, but how these changes influence the early embryo remains obscure. Neural tube defects, for example, are common congenital disorders found in fetus and neonates. In this study, we investigated the impact of anisotonic osmolarity (unequal osmotic pressures) on neural tube de...

this paper presents four cases of abnormal soft tissue activity in the bone scan of patients with different lesions (lung inflammatory pseudotumor, pulmonary fibrosis, pulmonary metastatic osteosarcoma and metastatic hepatic carcinoma of colon).

in order to assess the efficacy of hysteroscopic endometrial ablation and factors which are important in it's success, a prospective, randomized study was performed in shiraz university hospitals between sep. 1995 to feb. 1998. 50 patients with chief complaints of menorrhagia that were in reproductive age (25- 50 years) and had shown no response to medication and d&c; underwent endometrial...