Prediction of pregnancy viability in bovine in vitro-produced embryos and recipient plasma with Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy

Abstract

We analyzed embryo culture medium (CM) and recipient blood plasma using Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) metabolomics to predict pregnancy outcome. Individually cultured, in vitro-produced (IVP) blastocysts were transferred to recipients as fresh and vitrified-warmed. Spent CM and plasma samples were evaluated using FTIR. The discrimination capability of the classifiers was assessed for accuracy, sensitivity (pregnancy), specificity (nonpregnancy), and area under the receiver operator characteristic curve (AUC). Within all IVP fresh embryos (birth rate = 52%), high AUC were obtained at birth, especially with expanded blastocysts (CM: 0.80 ± 0.053; plasma: 0.89 ± 0.034). The AUC of vitrified IVP embryos (birth rate = 31%) were 0.607 ± 0.038 (CM, expanded blastocysts) and 0.672 ± 0.023 (plasma, all stages). Recipient plasma generally predicted pregnancy outcome better than did embryo CM. Embryos and recipients with improved pregnancy viability were identified, which could increase the economic benefit to the breeding industry.

Metabolic health, the metabolome and reproduction in female cattle: a review

“…In a recent study, IVF and ICSI derived cattle embryos were associated with spent culture media with a different metabolomic signature (Li et al 2018). Dual assessment of the systemic metabolome of recipient cows, together with the metabolome of spent culture media, could predict the pregnancy outcome for transferred IVF embryos (Munoz et al 2014a) and conventional superovulated embryos (Munoz et al 2014c). Notwithstanding recent progress with application of metabolomics in IVF, limitations have been identified and the field remains at an early stage (Cuperlovic-Culf et al 2010;McRae et al 2013;Uyar and Seli 2014;Munoz et al 2014c;Krisher et al 2015;Rodgaard et al 2015).…”

Embryo viability indexing using Raman spectroscopy of spent culture media

“…These applications have already been well revised [13]. One FTIR study [14] reports the sensitivity and specificity of 76.8% and 65.7%, respectively, for 24-hour embryo culture media. Another study with NMR [15] found embryo viability with the specificity and sensitivity of 88.2% and 88.2%, respectively.…”

New approaches regarding the in vitro maturation of oocytes: manipulating cyclic nucleotides and their partners in crime

“…The presence of cytokines and growth factors in follicular fluid is crucial for determining oocyte quality (reviewed by Dumesic et al, 2015). In this context, the metabolic characterization of the culture media, in which IVP embryos are kept for many hours, may represent an important non-invasive tool to either indicate possible predictive biomarkers of viability or to explain IVP outcome afterwards (Muñoz et al, 2014). …”