The purpose of this study was to systematically examine blastocoelic fl uid reduction prior to vitrifi cation and its potential benefi ts. In addition, we compared artifi cial collapse (AC) by laser pulse to a mechanical method. Mouse and dicarded human blastocysts were used in this study. Blastocysts were collapsed using either a 10 ms pulse with a laser (LAC) or else mechanical puncture with ...

To determine the critical cell numbers needed to form blastocyst stage embroys, bisected mouse embryos of 8-cell stage and compacted morula (approximately 16 cells) containing different numbers of blastomeres were cultured in vitro. The percentage of bisected compacted morulae with 7-9 blastomeres that developed to eu-blastocysts was 98.8%, while only 64.2% of the bisected 8-cell embryos with 4...

background: preparation of oocytes is one of the critical factors that determine the developmental competence of embryos produced by in vitro fertilization (ivf). objective: in this study, the effect of cysteamine, type of media and glutathione (gsh) level on blastocysts development after in vitro maturation of mouse oocytes were investigated. materials and methods: premature female mice were p...

Increased risk of monozygotic twinning (MZT) has been shown to be associated with assisted reproduction techniques, particularly blastocyst culture. Interestingly, inner cell mass (ICM) splitting in human '8'-shaped hatching blastocysts that resulted in MZT was reported. However, the underlying cause of MZT is not known. In this study, we investigated in a mouse model whether in vitro culture l...

Embryo electrofusion and tetraploid blastocyst microinjection is a modification of the traditional embryonic stem cell (ES cell)-based method to generate targeted mutant mice. Viability of tetraploid embryos is reportedly lower than with diploid embryos, with considerable interstrain variation. Here we assessed fetus and pup viability after ES cell microinjection of tetraploid blastocysts deriv...

background: the selection of pre-embryos for transferred is based on morphological appearance. but some poor quality cleaved embryos also can be cultured to the blastocyst stage and implanted. objective: to assess the clinical pregnancy outcomes of blastocyst transfer which developed from poor quality embryos. materials and methods: a total of 109 cleaved embryos with poor quality were cultured...

The prolificacy of two rabbit strains (Californian and New Zealand) has been studied in parallel with ovulation rate and embryonic development. The number of mean ovulations was 11.6 in Californians and only 9.6 in New Zealand. In spite of the higher rate in the former, the number of young born was about 8 in both strains. Californian and New Zealand blastocysts were transferred at 96 h post-co...

Three experiments were undertaken to investigate the effect of some factors on survival and viability of bovine blastocysts produced in vitro in serum-free oviduct-conditioned media. In vitro survival to freezing was higher for blastocysts appearing on days 6 and 7 than for day 8 blastocysts (67 and 50% hatching rate vs 12%). Transfer success of day 8 blastocysts to recipient heifers was 35% (9...

BACKGROUND The aim of this study was to analyse the outcome of closed blastocyst vitrification of embryos biopsied at the cleavage stage. METHODS Vitrification of supernumerary blastocysts was performed using the closed CBS-VIT High Security straws. Warming cycles (n = 100) for patients with preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) and/or aneuploidy screening in the fresh cycle were analysed. ...

Vitrification is commonly used in the cryopreservation of mammalian blastocysts to overcome the temporal and spatial limitations of embryo transfer. Previous studies have shown that the implantation ability of vitrified blastocysts is impaired and that microRNAs (miRNAs) regulate the critical genes for embryo implantation. However, little information is available about the effect of vitrificati...