Noninvasive Metabolomic Profiling of Human Embryo Culture Media Using a Simple Spectroscopy Adjunct to Morphology for Embryo Assessment in in Vitro Fertilization (IVF)

International Journal of Molecular Sciences

Qinghong Zhao¹  Tailang Yin¹  Jin Peng²  Yujie Zou¹  Jing Yang¹  Aiguo Shen² 

[1] Reproductive Medical Center, Renmin Hospital of Wuhan University, JieFang Road 238, Wuhan 430060, China; E-Mails:;College of Chemistry and Molecular Science, Wuhan University, Wuhan 430072, China; E-Mails:

关键词: metabolomics;    Raman spectroscopy;    culture media;    IVF;   

DOI  :  10.3390/ijms14046556

来源: mdpi

【 摘 要 】

Embryo quality is crucial to the outcome of in vitro fertilization (IVF); however, the ability to precisely distinguish the embryos with higher reproductive potential from others is poor. Morphologic evaluation used to play an important role in assessing embryo quality, but it is somewhat subjective. The culture medium is the immediate environment of the embryos in vitro, and a change of the substances in the culture medium is possibly related to the embryo quality. Thus, the present study aims to determine whether metabolomic profiling of the culture medium using Raman spectroscopy adjunct to morphology correlates with the reproductive potential of embryos in IVF and, thus, to look for a new method of assessing embryo quality. Fifty seven spent media samples were detected by Raman spectroscopy. Combined with embryo morphology scores, we found that embryos in culture media with less than 0.012 of sodium pyruvate and more than −0.00085 phenylalanine have a high reproductive potential, with up to 85.7% accuracy compared with clinical pregnancy. So, sodium pyruvate and phenylalanine in culture medium play an important role in the development of the embryo. Raman spectroscopy is an important tool that provides a new and accurate assessment of higher quality embryos.

【 授权许可】

CC BY   
© 2013 by the authors; licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland