Foreseeing the fate of an embryo - the use of compact time-lapse equipment in bovine in vitro embryo production
2011
Losonczi, E., Szent István University, Budapest (Hungary) | Matyás, Sz., Kaál Institute, Budapest (Hungary) | Molnár, K., Kaál Institute, Budapest (Hungary) | Zőldág, L., Szent István University, Budapest (Hungary) | Pribenszky, Cs., Szent István University, Budapest (Hungary)
Modern breeding requires the utilization of assisted reproductive technologies in order to attain rapid genetic improvement and maximal number of offspring in animals of great value. Embryo transfer, including the transfer of in vitro produced embryos is of high importance of the possible ART methods in cattle, however in vitro produced bovine embryos have a reduced capacity to establish and maintain pregnancy as compared with in vivo-derived embryos. Accordingly, proper selection of good quality in vitro produced embryos is essential in order to increase pregnancy rate in the recipients. Unfortunately, traditional and widely used daily morphological embryo evaluation seems to be insufficient to obtain the required accuracy in embryo selection, and more frequent observation has been pointed out by several studies. To achieve this purpose, time-lapse investigations are executed, which illustrate that continuous monitoring of early embryo morphology, especially the cleavage times and the presence or absence of fragmentations may provide data with a predictive value for the subsequent embryo developmental competence. In this study we present a time-lapse system which is suitable for prediction of the developmental competence, thus capable of selecting the best quality embryos. With the help of proper embryo selection increased pregnancy rate and decreased wastage of recipients can be achieved, which makes the in vitro production and embryo transfer more economic.
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