Biodynamic imaging of live porcine oocytes, zygotes and blastocysts for viability assessment in assisted reproductive technologies

Abstract

Abstract:The success of assisted reproductive technologies relies on accurate assessment of reproductive viability at successive stages of development for oocytes and embryos. The current scoring system used to select good-quality oocytes relies on morphologically observable traits and hence is indirect and subjective. Biodynamic imaging may provide an objective approach to oocyte and embryo assessment by measuring physiologically-relevant dynamics. Biodynamic imaging is a coherencegated approach to 3D tissue imaging that uses digital holography to perform low-coherence speckle interferometry to capture dynamic light scattering from intracellular motions. The changes in intracellular activity during cumulus oocyte complex maturation, before and after in vitro fertilization, and the subsequent development of the zygote and blastocyst provide a new approach to the assessment of preimplant candidates.

Inverse-power-law behavior of cellular motility reveals stromal–epithelial cell interactions in 3D co-culture by OCT fluctuation spectroscopy

“…While speckle fluctuation models have been well-developed for particle flow and diffusion in OCT [6,7], we are only beginning to understand the fluctuation spectra arising from intracellular motions in living tissues. Tissue fluctuation measurements are a growing area of research for assessing drug-response in cancer models in vitro [8,9], oocyte viability [10], and cortical cell recovery after stroke in vivo [3]. …”

Development and Application of Optical Coherence Tomography (OCT)

“…In order to perform PS-OCT beneath the body surface, endoscopic and needle-based PS-OCT was developed [28,29,[107][108][109][110][111][112]. To further increase the contrast and image range, PS-OCT has been combined with other technologies such as ultrasound and fluorescence imaging [113,114].…”

Full-Field Optical Coherence Tomography as a Diagnosis Tool: Recent Progress with Multimodal Imaging

“…We developed dynamic full-field OCT (D-FF-OCT), inspired by the work on quasi elastic dynamic light scattering and other dynamic measurements to measure biological activity [33,[108][109][110][111][112][113]. We therefore wondered whether the intracellular movements and vibrations can be important enough to modulate the optical path length of our interferometer by themselves, even without reference piezo modulation.…”