Our Department of Experimental Embryology originated from The Laboratory of Embryo Biotechnology, which was organized and directed by Dr. Maria Czlonkowska until her premature death in 1991. Proving successful international transfer of frozen equine embryos and generation of an embryonic sheep-goat chimaera surviving ten years were outstanding achievements of her term. In the 1990s, we produced...

BACKGROUND We evaluated whether heat shock protein HSP70 plays a protective role in the embryos of Kunming mice subjected to chronic unpredictable mild stress. METHODS Female mice were stimulated for 4 weeks with nine stressors and then divided into mild, moderate and severe stress groups. Superovulation was induced with a gonadotropin preparation (PMSG/HCG) and HSP70 expression in 2-cell emb...

Three cold shock domain (CSD) family members (YB-1, MSY2, and MSY4) exist in vertebrate species ranging from frogs to humans. YB-1 is expressed throughout embryogenesis and is ubiquitously expressed in adult animals; it protects cells from senescence during periods of proliferative stress. YB-1-deficient embryos die unexpectedly late in embryogenesis (embryonic day 18.5 [E18.5] to postnatal day...

Tgif1 and Tgif2 are transcriptional repressors that inhibit the transcriptional response to transforming growth factor β signaling, and can repress gene expression by direct binding to DNA. Loss of function mutations in TGIF1 are associated with holoprosencephaly (HPE) in humans. In mice, embryos lacking both Tgif1 and Tgif2 fail to complete gastrulation, and conditional double null embryos tha...

BACKGROUND Cardiovascular and neural malformations are common sequels of diabetic pregnancies, but the underlying molecular mechanisms remain unknown. We hypothesized that maternal hyperglycemia would affect the embryos most shortly after the glucose-sensitive time window at embryonic day (ED) 7.5 in mice. METHODS Mice were made diabetic with streptozotocin, treated with slow-release insulin ...

Cryopreservation of mouse embryos is a technological basis that supports biomedical sciences, because many strains of mice have been produced by genetic modifications and the number is consistently increasing year by year. Its technical development started with slow freezing methods in the 1970s(1), then followed by vitrification methods developed in the late 1980s(2). Generally, the latter tec...

Abstract Paternal high-fat diet (HFD) can alter the epigenetics of sperm DNA, resulting in transmission obesity-related traits to offspring. Previous studies have mainly focused on HFD-induced changes DNA methylation imprinted genes, overlooking potential involvement non-imprinted genes this process. SETD2 , an important epigenetically-regulated gene known for its response environmental stress,...

The placental labyrinth is important for the exchange of nutrients and gases between mother embryo in mice. This interface contains cells both trophoblast allantoic mesodermal origin that together produce maternal blood sinuses vessels. However, molecular mechanisms take place during process development, especially concerning fetal capillaries, are not well understood. SREBP cleavage-activating...