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Updated: Jul 4, 2026
Mouse Embryonic Development in a Serum-free Whole Embryo Culture System
Published on: March 1, 2014
Development of vitrified-warmed mouse embryos co-cultured with polarized or non-polarized uterine epithelial cells
Mehri Azadbakht1, Mojtaba Rezazadeh Valojerdi
1Department of Anatomy, Faculty of Medical Sciences, Tarbiat Modares University, Tehran, Iran.
Purpose:
To our knowledge, little is known about the effect of polarized and non-polarized uterine epithelial cells on cryopreserved embryo growth. This study was, therefore, set up to investigate the effect of these monolayers together with sequential culture media on vitrified-warmed mouse embryos in terms of blastocyst development, blastocyst quality, incidence of apoptosis and related genes expression.
Methods:
Two cell vitrified-warmed mouse embryos were cultured in G-1ver3 medium to the eight-cell stage when they were randomly assigned to three treatment groups of no co-culture (control), non-polarized and polarized mouse uterine epithelial monolayer co-culture. The culture medium was G-2ver3 during the treatment phase. After 96 h on treatment, the significance of differences were evaluated by the one way analysis of variance for continuous data.
Results:
In the polarized monolayer group, the hatched blastocyst formation and blastocyst quality improved significantly than other two groups (P < 0.05). Whereas the incidence of apoptosis and related gene expression such as Bax were higher in the blastocysts of control group (P < 0.05). The relative abundance of Bcl-2 mRNA to the beta-tubulin was similar for all treatments.
Conclusion:
Co-culture system involving polarized uterine epithelial cells and sequential culture media is a promising method for the improvement of vitrified-warmed mouse embryo development.
