Quality control in IVF with mouse bioassays: a four years' experience

Area of Science:

• Reproductive biology
• In vitro fertilization (IVF) technologies
• Embryology

Background:

• Homemade culture media require rigorous quality control to ensure efficacy in assisted reproductive technologies.
• Mouse in vitro fertilization (IVF) and zygote bioassays serve as predictive models for human IVF outcomes.

Purpose of the Study:

• To retrospectively evaluate the relevance of four years of quality control for homemade culture media using mouse IVF and zygote bioassays.
• To determine if mouse bioassay performance predicts human IVF success rates and embryo quality.

Main Methods:

• Mouse oocytes (in vitro or in vivo fertilized) were cultured in batches of homemade medium.
• Two-cell-stage and blastocyst development in mice were recorded for each medium batch.
• Human IVF data, including fertilization and embryo quality, were analyzed for correlation with mouse bioassay results, excluding specific male infertility and microinjection cycles.

Main Results:

• A significant decrease in human oocyte fertilization rates (60% to 54%, P < 0.05; 57% to 41%, P < 0.01) and mean embryo score (4.17 to 3.69, P < 0.05) was observed when using media with low mouse zygote or IVF bioassay development (< or = 75%).
• Pregnancy rates were not significantly affected by the quality of the culture medium as assessed by the mouse bioassays.

Conclusions:

• Homemade culture media demonstrating high performance in mouse bioassays are associated with superior fertilization rates and embryo quality in human IVF.
• Mouse bioassays are valuable tools for quality control of culture media, predicting their suitability for human assisted reproduction.