Metabolomic Analysis Reveals Changes in Preimplantation Embryos Following Fresh or Vitrified Transfer

International Journal of Molecular Sciences

Sarah Frusciante¹  Gianfranco Diretto¹  JoséSalvador Vicente²  Francisco Marco-Jiménez²  Ximo Garcia-Dominguez² 

[1] Italian National Agency for New Technologies, Energy and Sustainable Development (ENEA), Casaccia Research Centre, 00123 Rome, Italy;Laboratory of Biotechnology of Reproduction, Institute for Animal Science and Technology (ICTA), Universitat Politècnica de València, 46022 Valencia, Spain;

关键词: embryo manipulation;    cryopreservation;    stress;    metabolism;    developmental plasticity;    developmental programming;   

DOI  :  10.3390/ijms21197116

来源: DOAJ

【 摘 要 】

Although assisted reproduction technologies (ARTs) are recognised as safe, and most of the offspring seem apparently healthy, there is clear evidence that ARTs are associated with changes in the embryo’s developmental trajectory, which incur physiological consequences during the prenatal and postnatal stages of life. The present study aimed to address the influence of early (day-3 embryos) embryo transfer and cryopreservation on embryo survival, size, and metabolome at the preimplantation stage (day-6 embryos). To this end, fresh-transferred (FT) and vitrified-transferred (VT) embryos were compared using naturally-conceived (NC) embryos as a control reference. The results show that as in vitro manipulation was increased (NC < FT < VT), both embryo survival rate (0.91 ± 0.02, 0.78 ± 0.05 and 0.63 ± 0.05, for NC, FT, and VT groups, respectively) and embryo size (3.21 ± 0.49 mm, 2.15 ± 0.51 mm, 1.76 ± 0.46 mm of diameter for NC, FT, and VT groups, respectively) were significantly decreased. Moreover, an unbiased metabolomics analysis showed overall down-accumulation in 40 metabolites among the three experimental groups, with embryo transfer and embryo cryopreservation procedures both exerting a cumulative effect. In this regard, targeted metabolomics findings revealed a significant reduction in some metabolites involved in metabolic pathways, such as the Krebs cycle, amino acids, unsaturated fatty acids, and arachidonic acid metabolisms. Altogether, these findings highlight a synergistic effect between the embryo transfer and vitrification procedures in preimplantation embryos. However, the ex vivo manipulation during embryo transfer seemed to be the major trigger of the embryonic changes, as the deviations added by the vitrification process were relatively smaller.

【 授权许可】

Unknown