The postimplantation development of spontaneous digynic triploid embryos in LT/Sv strain mice

When spontaneously ovulating LT/Sv female mice are mated with fertile males, between one third and one half of the zygotes analyzed at the first cleavage mitosis are found to be triploid. This is due to the fact that LT/Sv females ovulate both primary and secondary oocytes, all of which are capable of being fertilized. Fertilization of the former group results in the production of digynic triploid conceptuses, while their diploid littermates result from the fertilization of normal secondary oocytes. The present study was therefore carried out in order to investigate the 'spontaneous' level of triploidy in these mice, and to provide insight into the developmental fate of the LT/Sv triploid embryos, as previous studies had indicated that in this species triploids invariably fail to develop beyond the early postimplantation period. This study revealed that when autopsies were carried out on the 7th and 8th days of gestation, it was generally difficult to distinguish between the karyologically normal diploids and the digynic triploid conceptuses when only morphological criteria were used. However, by the 10th day of gestation, the triploid conceptuses could usually be readily distinguished from their diploid littermates by their smaller size and (occasionally) by their disorganized or abnormal morphological appearance.