Blastocyst formation, as a critical period during development, is an effective indicator of embryonic health and reproductive efficiency. Out of a number of mechanisms underlying blastocyst formation, highly conserved mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) signaling has emerged as a major mechanism involved in regulating murine preimplantation embryo development. The objective of our study was...

An in vitro assay has been developed in order to examine the mechanism whereby the mouse blastocyst regulates embryonal carcinoma (EC). The assay measures the suppression of EC cell colony formation caused by exposure to the cavity of the blastocyst (i.e., blastocele), and the results are comparable to the previous results with blastocyst-mediated suppression of tumor formation for this same ce...

Cycles with progesterone elevation during controlled ovarian stimulation (COS) for IVF/ICSI are commonly managed with a "freeze-all" strategy, due to a well-recognized detrimental effect of high progesterone levels on endometrial receptivity. However, also a detrimental effect of elevated progesterone on day-3 embryo quality has recently been found with regards to top quality embryo formation r...

Purpose To devise an uninvasive selection system for human embryos with high developmental potential after a single oocyte retrieval cycle by comparing the in vitro and in vivo effectiveness of first division synchrony against subsequent embryonic developmental stages. Methods The effects of using assisted reproductive technology on 948 embryos that were produced in 137 cycles were examined b...

BACKGROUND: All-trans retinol is a biological antioxidantscavenging the ROS in the cell culture. OBJECTIVES: This studywas conducted to investigate the effect of all-trans retinol infertilization and culture medium on mouse embryo's developmentalcompetence. METHODS: This study was designed into twoexperiments. In the first experiment, in vitro mature oocytes wereco-cultured with sperm in fertil...

objective: vitrification has been shown as one of the most effective methods of cryopreservation for mammalian embryos. however, there is no consensus which stage of embryonic development is the most appropriate for vitrification with subsequent maximal development after thawing. this study was carried out to explore and compare the effect(s) of vitrification on mouse 2-cell, 4-cell, 8-cell, mo...

Background: Heat shock may affect different aspects of oocyte maturation and its subsequent development to the blastocyst stage. A series of in vitro experiments was performed to determine whether physiologically heat shock (41°C) disrupts the progression of the ovine oocytes through meiosis, activation and blastocyst formation. Materials and Methods: The cumulus-oocyte complexes (COCs) were as...

Early compacting mouse morulae were placed in alpha-amanitin at various times after HCG and the effect of this transcriptional inhibitor during formation of the blastocyst was noted. No cavitation was observed in those embryos transferred into alpha-amanitin before 77 h after HCG but the percentage of cavitation increased dramatically in those embryos transferred after 80 h post HCG. The large ...

INTER-SPECIFIC transplantations of mammalian eggs offer one possible way of studying the significance of intrinsic and external factors in embryonic development and their mutual interactions. The variety of problems which can be attacked by this method is dependent, of course, on the length of time during which development can proceed with a given combination of donor and recipient. The develop...

Recent studies indicate a strong paternal influence on embryo development and progression of the embryo to the blastocyst stage. The aim of this study was to compare, during extended culture, the in-vitro development of embryos resulting from intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI) of ejaculated spermatozoa (group 1, n = 347), epididymal (group 2, n = 22) or testicular (group 3, n = 18) spermat...