Label-free candidate dOCM biomarkers associated with blastocyst quality using total cell count as a proxy

Area of Science:

• Biomedical Engineering
• Reproductive Biology
• Microscopy

Background:

• Current blastocyst grading in in vitro fertilization (IVF) relies on subjective morphological assessment.
• There is a need for quantitative, label-free biomarkers to objectively assess blastocyst quality.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the potential of dynamic optical coherence microscopy (dOCM) for quantitative assessment of intracellular fluctuations in murine blastocysts.
• To identify novel label-free biomarkers for blastocyst quality using dOCM.

Main Methods:

• Application of dynamic optical coherence microscopy (dOCM) to murine blastocysts.
• Quantification of intracellular fluctuation spectra using full- and band-resolved metrics (mean frequency, RMS bandwidth, motility amplitude, variance fraction).
• Comparison of dOCM metrics between low- and high-cell-count blastocyst cohorts using cell counting as a benchmark.

Main Results:

• Full-band dOCM metrics did not show significant differences between low- and high-cell-count blastocysts.
• Band-resolved analysis revealed higher mid-band mean frequency and increased mid-band RMS bandwidth in higher-cell-count embryos.
• A significant decrease in low-frequency variance fraction was observed in higher-cell-count embryos.

Conclusions:

• Frequency-specific dOCM signatures show promise as candidate biomarkers for objective blastocyst quality assessment.
• Band-resolved analysis of intracellular dynamics provides more discriminatory information than full-band analysis.
• dOCM offers a label-free, quantitative approach to potentially improve IVF outcomes.