Related Experiment Videos
Improved development of very-poor-quality human preembryos by coculture with human fallopian ampullary cells
Amnon Weichselbaum1, Yoav Paltieli, Ralph Philosoph
1Faulkner Institute for Reproductive Medicine, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.
Purpose:
To determine whether a confluent culture of fallopian ampullary epithelial cells, taken from women at the end of their reproductive life, is capable of rescuing very-poor-quality preembryos from cleavage arrest and/or degeneration.
Methods:
Human preembryos. rejected for transfer or freezing because of very poor quality, and arrested within 24 h of cleavage, were cultured for 5 days in medium alone or over a confluent culture of fallopian ampullary epithelia] cells. Morphological criteria were utilized to assess preembryo degeneration and stage of development.
Results:
The described coculture rescued preembryos from degeneration, enhancing development to the blastocyst stage 2.2-fold, compared with cultures in medium alone. Furthermore, fully expanded and hatching blastocysts were observed only under coculture conditions.
Conclusions:
Very-poor-quality human preembryos may be rescued from degeneration, and their growth and development dramatically improved, when cocultured with a confluent culture of fallopian ampullary epithelial cells.