Reproduction Abstracts

Normal growth of oocyte, embryo and also successful Implantation depend on environmental factor 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 different growth factors and cytokines by mesenchymal stem cells (MSc), the present study shows the effects of MSc-derived CM on fertilization rate, early embryo development and OCT-4 expression.

Materials & Methods: 60 female and 10 male NMRI mice were used to obtain the MII oocytes and capacitated sperm for IVF in the following groups:

The basic fertilization medium (BFM) in control group contained T6+BSA 15 mg/ml, for treated groups 1–3 was added respectively 25, 50 and 75% of MSc-derived CM to BFM.

The fertilized oocytes transfered to embryo developmental medium (T6+BSA 4 mg/ml) for 72 h, and then 8-cells embryo were obtained to extract total RNA and assasy OCT-4 gene expression.

Results and Discussion: The study showed statically a difference on fertilization rate in the treated group 3 in comparison with other ones.

The results didn’t show any difference on embryo developmental rate; Howevere, there was a higher expression of Oct-4 in the treated groups particularly in the presence of 50% MSc-derived CM, in comarision of control group. It concluded that adding MSc-derived CM (50%v/v) may improve OCT-4 gene expression and subsequently early embryo cell division.