When intact mouse blastocysts are cultured in vitro in medium supplemented with foetal calf serum, trophoblast cells proliferate and undergo giant cell transformation such as occurs in vivo. If the amount of inner cell mass in the blastocyst is decreased by culture with [3H]-thymidine then giant cell transformation occurs normally but proliferation is reduced. In the absence of inner cell mass ...

AIM The aim of this study was to investigate the relationship between the morphology, euploidy and implantation rate of cleavage stage and blastocyst stage embryos. SETTING Institution-based, tertiary care in-vitro fertilization centre. STUDY DESIGN This study included a retrospective data analysis of 306 embryos: 154 cleavage stage embryos and 152 blastocysts that underwent biopsy on day 3...

Objective: Interleukin-1 beta (IL-1β) and Interleukin-6 (IL-6) are pro-inflammatory cytokines involved in the mother-embryo interaction during blastocyst adhesion and invasion into the endometrium. IL-1β is also considered as a first signal delivered from blastocyst to the endometrium to influence uterus receptivity. The aim of the present prospective, non-randomized study was to explore whethe...

Background Recent researches reveal that manual puncturing of the trophectoderm of blastocyst before vitrification, increase the quality of embryo. However, in any of these studies, the importance of blastocoelic fluid and its impact on the formation of three cell lines is not mentioned. Therefore, in the present study, the effect of blastocoelic fluid reduction before vitrification on survival...

During embryo implantation in the human trophoblast cells invade the endometrium and plasminogen activators (PA) are implicated in this tissue invasion process. Our studies on surplus embryos from patients undergoing in-vitro fertilization (IVF) treatments showed that PA activity was present in secretions of blastocysts but not embryos at the 2-4-cell stage. The secretion of this PA activity by...

The number of children born since the origin of Assisted Reproductive Technologies (ART) exceeds 5 million. The majority seem healthy, but a higher frequency of defects has been reported among ART-conceived infants, suggesting an epigenetic cost. We report the first whole-genome DNA methylation datasets from single pig blastocysts showing differences between in vivo and in vitro produced embryo...

The ability of two embryonal carcinoma (EC) cell lines, F9 and PC13, to aggregate with preimplantation 8-cell mouse embryos is described. Both adhere to the embryonic cells and subsequently compact with the embryos. The aggregates form blastocysts in culture. The blastocysts sometimes contain the EC cells, located almost always in their inner cell mass. Differentiated derivatives of EC cells, n...

This study was conducted to compare the efficiency of four vitrification methods: straws in goblet, straws in Hasler device, cryloop and cryotop methods on blastocyst viability and the extent of apoptosis using the TUNEL technique in bovine embryos. Blastocysts were produced in vitro by standard procedures. The base medium for vitrification was Syngro holding medium. Embryos were vitrified by t...

STUDY QUESTION Does the storage time of vitrified human blastocysts negatively impact their survival, the implantation potential of embryos or the malformation rate of babies born? SUMMARY ANSWER There was no evidence that storage times of up to 6 years after vitrification (VIT) had a negative impact on blastocyst survival, the implantation potential of embryos or the malformation rate of bab...

Mammalian male preimplantation embryos develop more quickly than females . Using enhanced green fluorescent protein (EGFP)-tagged X chromosomes to identify the sex of the embryos, we compared gene expression patterns between male and female mouse blastocysts by DNA microarray. We detected nearly 600 genes with statistically significant sex-linked expression; most differed by 2-fold or less. Of ...