COMPARISON OF MOUSE EMBRYO DEVELOPMENT IN OPEN AND MICRODROP COCULTURE SYSTEMS

Co-culture with numerous cell lines has been shown to improve in-vitro embryo development. It is usually performed in open culture without a n oil overlay, or in relatively large volumes of medium (e.g. 0.5 mi) under oil. We compared the efficacy of open and microdrop coculture sy stems using human endometrial and tubal cell lines and mouse zygotes, Although the mean pH values of the media from the tubal cell cultures (both open and oil-covered) decreased significantly over 5 days of cul ture, this did not appear to impair embryo development. Both coculture and microdrop culture significantly improved blastocyst and hatching blastocyst formation rates, The combination of the two techniques (mic rodrop and co-culture) demonstrated the highest blastocyst formation a nd hatching blastocyst formation rates, as well as the highest mean ce ll numbers in hatching blastocysts. Go-culture in a microdrop is a sup erior system for mouse embryo culture.