BACKGROUND The present study was undertaken to examine the usefulness of both vitrification and assisted hatching (AH) on blastocysts that originate from embryos showing different qualities during their cleavage stage. METHODS A total of 281 blastocysts were vitrified (93 vitrification-warming cycles) in a mixture of ethylene glycol-dimethylsulphoxide-Ficoll and sucrose using the Hemi-Straw (...

Cryopreservation is known for its marked deleterious effects on embryonic health. Bovine compact morulae were vitrified or slow-frozen, and post-warm morulae were cultured to the expanded blastocyst stage. Blastocysts developed from vitrified and slow-frozen morulae were subjected to microarray analysis and compared with blastocysts developed from unfrozen control morulae for differential gene ...

Background: Apoptosis is induced by several factors and has an important role in embryonic development. Since vitrification-induced embryonic damages could be resulted from an increase in apoptosis occurrence,the aim of the present study is to investigate the effect of vitrification on induction of apoptosis in blastocysts. Materials and Methods: For this purpose 20 balb-c mice superovulated an...

Objective Apigenin is a plant-derived compound belong to the flavonoids category and has the protective effects on different cells. The aim was to evaluate the effect of apigenin on the number of viable and apoptotic blastomeres, the zona pellucida (ZP) thickness and the hatching rate of preimplantation mouse embryos exposed to H2O2 and actinomycin D. MaterialsAndMethods 420 two-cell embryos we...

OBJECTIVE The aim of this study was to investigate associations between the morphology score of blastocysts and blastocoele re-expansion speed after warming with clinical outcomes, which could assist in making correct and cost-effective decisions regarding the appropriate time to vitrify blastocysts and to transfer vitrified-warmed blastocysts. METHODS A total of 327 vitrified-warmed two-blas...

The effects of lipid-rich bovine serum albumin (LR-BSA) on the development of porcine blastocysts produced in vitro were examined. Addition of 0.5 to 5 mg/ml LR-BSA to porcine blastocyst medium (PBM) from Day 5 (Day 0 = in vitro fertilization) significantly increased the hatching rates of blastocysts on Day 7 and the total cell numbers in Day-7 blastocysts. When Day-5 blastocysts were cultured ...

Morphological changes of cultured bovine blastocysts during hatching were observed using time-lapse videomicrography in order to investigate the patterns of the hatching process that occurred in the blastocysts and to determine whether the hatching patterns differed between blastocysts developed from fresh and cryopreserved embryos. Compacted morulae (CMs) were collected from superovulation-tre...

BACKGROUND Cleavage stage embryos as well as postimplantation embryos have been studied extensively over the years. However, our knowledge with respect to the chromosomal constitution of human embryos at the blastocyst stage is still rudimentary. METHODS In the present paper, a large series of human blastocysts was examined by means of fluorescent in situ hybridization (FISH). RESULTS It wa...

Dormant blastocysts during delayed implantation undergo autophagic activation, which is an adaptive response to prolonged survival in utero during less favorable environment. We observed that multivesicular bodies (MVBs) accumulate in the trophectoderm of dormant blastocysts upon activation for implantation. Since autophagosomes are shown to fuse with MVBs and efficient autophagic degradation r...

BACKGROUND It has been claimed that the risks to the child resulting from vitrification as compared with the slow-freezing technique, may be higher owing to the high concentrations of potentially toxic cryoprotectants. We therefore retrospectively compared the obstetric and neonatal outcomes in a cohort of children born after transfer of vitrified blastocysts, fresh blastocysts and slow-frozen ...