Gap junctions play an important role in cell-to-cell communication, a process obviously required for embryo implantation. Uterine luminal epithelium (LE) is the first contact for an implanting embryo and is critical for the establishment of uterine receptivity. Microarray analysis of LE from periimplantation mouse uterus showed low level expression of 19 gap junction proteins in preimplantation...

Leukemia inhibitory factor (LIF) is essential for embryo implantation in mice and plays an important role in other mammals including humans. Intraperitoneal (i.p.) injections with anti-LIF antibody (7.5 µg/g body weight, 3 times) between D3 (D1 = day of vaginal plug detection) and D4 effectively blocked embryo implantation; complete inhibition was achieved in C57BL/6J mice, and implantation was...

Ambitious international efforts are underway to produce gene-knockout mice for each of the 25,000 mouse genes, providing a new platform to study mammalian development and disease. Robust, large-scale methods for morphological assessment of prenatal mice will be essential to this work. Embryo phenotyping currently relies on histological techniques but these are not well suited to large volume sc...

Oocyte maturation and embryo development are controlled by intra-ovarian factors such as steroid hormones. Progesterone (P4) exists in the follicular fluid that contributes to normal mammalian ovarian function and has several critical functions during embryo development and implantation, including endometrial receptivity, embryonic survival during gestation and transformation of the endometrial...

Background: Normal growth of oocytes, embryos and also successful implantation depend on environmental factors such as the secretion of cumulus cells and composition of follicular and tubular fluids. Therefore, addition of serum, conditioned medium (CM) to the culture medium and also co-culture with somatic cells improve mammalian embryo development. So, in the respect to the secretion of diffe...

The objectives of this study were to evaluate the effects of a nitric oxide (NO) donor on embryo development in vitro and on implantation of embryos in vivo in mice. Mouse embryos (2-cell) were incubated in media containing different concentrations of diethylenetriamine/NO (DETA/NO), a nitric oxide donor, and development was monitored daily for 4 days. Specificity of NO effects was assessed by ...

background: to assess embryos derived by the transfer of meiosis-ii chromosomes (m-ii-t) from aged mice oocytes into ooplasms from younger mice to overcome the problem of age-related decline in female fertility. materials and methods: the developmental capacity karyotype and ultrastructure of reconstructed oocytes derived from meiosis-ii chromosome transplantation from aged mice into the ooplas...

background:   objective: the objective of this study was to evaluate the effect of rabbit antiserum to es cells on mouse preimplantation embryo development and chimera production.   materials and methods: mouse 4-cell embryos were matured in vitro at 37.5 o c, in humidified 5% co 2 atmosphere for 12-36 h. the embryos were cultured in ksom medium with or without antiserum for 12-36 h. the ratios...