Figure 1
Effect of reducing culture medium nutrient concentrations on preimplantation mouse embryo development, cell number, and ATP concentration. Embryos were cultured in medium with control nutrient concentrations (OEC100; black bars), and reduced nutrient concentrations of 75% (OEC75; white bars), 50% (OEC50; light gray bars) and 25% (OEC25; dark gray bars). (A) The proportion of presumptive zygotes that cleaved to the two cell stage (% cleaved), and developed to the blastocyst (BL) and hatching blastocyst (HB) stage on day 4 (D4) and day 5 (D5) of culture were assessed. Values are expressed as a percentage of total zygotes cultured (total) and of cleaved embryos (clv). (B) Average number of inner cell mass (ICM; SOX2 positive), trophectoderm (TE; CDX2 positive), and total cells, and (C) percentage of ICM cells in individual hatching and fully hatched blastocysts. Average ATP concentration of individual blastocysts expressed (D) per embryo and (E) per cell. Data are presented as the mean ± s.e.m. Different superscripts indicate significant differences (abp ≤ 0.05) or trends (xyp < 0.09) between treatments within a given endpoint.
