Background: The expression of miR-302 over the period of early embryogenesis could possibly regulate the maternal transcript clearance. Zygotic transcription activation is mostly related to maternal messages degradation.
Objective: In this study, the effects of in-vitro maturation technique (IVM) on the expression of miR-302 in human embryo produced from immature and mature human oocytes (matured in vitro and in vivo, before sperm exposure) obtained from females under gonadotrophin therapy were evaluated for assisted reproduction.
Materials and Methods: Immature oocytes were cultured in vitro. The injection of oocytes-producing polar bodies was given using fresh sperm. Then, the embryo quality score was assessed in the IVM group compared with the control group. In both the groups, embryos with normal morphology were included in the molecular study. Only one blastomere was removed from three-day embryos and then the embryos were frozen. The expression of miR-302 in embryos was measured through quantitative realtime polymerase chain reaction.
Results: Our data showed a significant reduction of miR-302 expression in the IVM group vs. the control group (p = 0.02). The embryo quality score showed a significant difference between the two groups (p = 0.01).
Conclusion: The present study demonstrated that the IVM process had a negative effect on the expression level of miR-302 in human pre-implantation embryos. Considering the major role of expression miR-302, a reduced potential in miR-302 expression could be related to a decrease in the early embryonic development.
In treatment cycles of in vitro fertilization (IVF), 15% of the oocytes are immature and in the germinal vesicle (GV) phase. In rare occasions, more than 50% of the oocytes of a patient in a cycle are immature. Selecting fertility treatment for patients in this situation can be very challenging. The patient described in this report was a 35-year-old woman with primary infertility for 10 years. She had undergone fertility treatment six times, with no success. In her cycles, more than 50% of the oocytes were immature and in the GV phase. To address the situation, we developed a coordinated protocol involving medical and embryology procedures, analyzed the patient’s medical records, and looked into the reasons of prior treatment failure. The development of a special and coordinated effort - instead of having medical and embryology teams working in isolation - proved efficient at providing better outcomes to the patient.
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