CTCF is a highly conserved, multifunctional zinc finger protein involved in critical aspects of gene regulation including transcription regulation, chromatin insulation, genomic imprinting, X-chromosome inactivation, and higher order chromatin organization. Such multifunctional properties of CTCF suggest an essential role in development. Indeed, a previous report on maternal depletion of CTCF s...

BACKGROUND High concentration of glucose in culture medium affects the developmental process and the quality of the pre-implantation embryo. This study examined the effects of Zuogui Wan (ZGW) supplementation on early embryo development cultured in high-glucose medium. METHODS Embryos were cultured in high-glucose medium with or without ZGW supplementation. Developmental rate and competence w...

background: it has been demonstrated that performing a mock embryo transfer (et) significantly improves the pregnancy rate in ivf cycles. the mock et could be performed prior to the stimulation cycle or immediately before real et. the problem of the first procedure is the possibility of variation in the uterine position and or cervico�uterine angle. objective: the purpose of this study was to d...

background: natural endometrium in frozen-thawed embryo transfer (fet) may have some benefits upon implantation in patients with repeated implantation failure (rif). it might be due to possible differences between natural and stimulated endometrial growth factors and cytokins secretions. objective: the objective of this study was to compare the pregnancy rate of fet on modified natural cycle ve...

In vitro culture of pre-implantation embryos is a key-step in Assisted Reproductive Technologies (ART) protocols. In present work we examine the potential of microfluidic devices for pre-implantation human embryo culture, in comparison with conventional droplet-based culture (control). Donated frozen day-4 embryos are cultured for 72 h after thawing in both formats, and graded at four different...

assessment of embryo quality in order to choose the embryos that most likely result in pregnancy is the critical goal in assisted reproductive technologies (art). the current trend in human in vitro fertilization/embryo transfer (ivf/et) protocols is to decrease the rate of multiple pregnancies after multiple embryo transfer with maintaining the pregnancy rate at admissible levels (according to...

Microfluidics holds great potential for the field of assisted reproduction techniques (ART), to provide integrated platforms for combined embryo culture and characterization. The development of mouse embryos is not impaired in a microfluidic format: it proceeds faster during the pre-implantation period (< day 4), and gives similar birth rates. More importantly, single embryo culture is enhanced...

Background: Somatic cell nuclear transfer, commonly known as cloning is a powerful tool for the production of identical animals for productive, biomedical or conservation purposes. Today several species of mammals has been cloned using this technology. Nevertheless, the efficiency of the process is still low in terms of newborn animals. The causes for such inefficiencies are mainly the lack of ...