SCREENING OF MATERNAL SERA USING A MOUSE EMBRYO CULTURE ASSAY IS NOT PREDICTIVE OF HUMAN EMBRYO DEVELOPMENT OR IVF OUTCOME

Purpose: Maternal serum is commonly added to media used for human IVF but can vary widely in its ability to support the development of human embryos in vitro. The objective of this study was to determine if the screening of maternal serum with a mouse one-cell embryo culture assa y would be useful in predicting human embryo development and clinical outcome following IVF. Methods: Twenty-two individual serum samples fr om IVF patients were used as a supplement (7.5%) to Ham's F-10 media f or culturing human embryos. All embryos were evaluated at the time of transfer for stage of development and embryo quality. Each serum sampl e was also tested for its ability to support mouse embryo development. One-cell embryos were recovered from superovulated female mice and cu ltured in serum-supplemented media. Mouse blastocyst development was a ssessed after 96 h of incubation. Results: No correlation was found be tween mouse blastocyst formation and human embryo development in media supplemented with maternal sera. Similarly, there was no association between the development of mouse blastocysts and clinical outcome foll owing IVF. A sub-analysis of patients whose sera tested poorly on the mouse assay again revealed no association between mouse and human embr yo development. Conclusion: Mouse embryo development in media containi ng human serum did not predict development of human embryos in vitro o r clinical outcome following IVF. There would be little benefit to scr eening maternal sera using a mouse embryo culture system for determini ng ifs suitability for use in human IVF.