Pre-Implantation Mouse Embryos Cultured In Vitro under Different Oxygen Concentrations Show Altered Ultrastructures

Manuel Belli, Paolo Rinaudo, Maria Grazia Palmerini, Elena Ruggeri, Sevastiani Antonouli, Stefania Annarita Nottola and Guido Macchiarelli
Additional contact information
Manuel Belli: Department of Life, Health and Environmental Sciences, University of L’Aquila, 67100 L’Aquila, Italy
Paolo Rinaudo: Center for Reproductive Sciences, Department of Obgyn, University of California San Francisco, San Francisco, CA 94143, USA
Maria Grazia Palmerini: Department of Life, Health and Environmental Sciences, University of L’Aquila, 67100 L’Aquila, Italy
Elena Ruggeri: Center for Reproductive Sciences, Department of Obgyn, University of California San Francisco, San Francisco, CA 94143, USA
Sevastiani Antonouli: Department of Life, Health and Environmental Sciences, University of L’Aquila, 67100 L’Aquila, Italy
Stefania Annarita Nottola: Department of Anatomy, Histology, Forensic Medicine and Orthopaedics, La Sapienza University of Rome, 00161 Rome, Italy
Guido Macchiarelli: Department of Life, Health and Environmental Sciences, University of L’Aquila, 67100 L’Aquila, Italy

IJERPH, 2020, vol. 17, issue 10, 1-17

Abstract: Assisted Reproductive Technologies routinely utilize different culture media and oxygen (O 2 ) concentrations to culture human embryos. Overall, embryos cultured under physiological O 2 tension (5%) have improved development compared to embryos cultured under atmospheric O 2 conditions (20%). The mechanisms responsible for this remain unclear. This study aimed to evaluate the effect of physiologic (5%) or atmospheric O 2 (20%) tension on the microscopic ultrastructure of pre-implantation mouse embryos using Transmission Electron Microscopy (TEM). Embryos flushed out of the uterus after natural mating were used as the control. For use as the control, 2-cells, 4-cells, morulae, and blastocysts were flushed out of the uterus after natural fertilization. In vitro fertilization (IVF) was performed using potassium simplex optimized medium (KSOM) under different O 2 tensions (5% and 20%) until the blastocyst stage. After collection, embryos were subjected to the standard preparative for light microscopy (LM) and TEM. We found that culture in vitro under 5% and 20% O 2 results in an increase of vacuolated shaped mitochondria, cytoplasmic vacuolization and presence of multi-vesicular bodies at every embryonic stage. In addition, blastocysts generated by IVF under 5% and 20% O 2 showed a lower content of heterochromatin, an interruption of the trophectodermal and inner cell mass cell membranes, an increased density of residual bodies, and high levels of glycogen granules in the cytoplasm. In conclusion, this study suggests that in vitro culture, particularly under atmospheric O 2 tension, causes stage-specific changes in preimplantation embryo ultrastructure. In addition, atmospheric (20%) O 2 is associated with increased alterations in embryonic ultrastructure; these changes may explain the reduced embryonic development of embryos cultured with 20% O 2 .

Keywords: IVF; oxygen concentration; embryo; in vitro culture; TEM (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/17/10/3384/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/17/10/3384/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:17:y:2020:i:10:p:3384-:d:357315

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().