Korean J Fertil Steril.  1999 Aug;26(2):231-238.

Cryopreservation of Bovine IVM/IVF/IVC Blastocysts by Vitrification

• Nam HK
• Kim EY
• Lee KS
• Yoon SH
• Park SP
• Lim JH

Abstract

SUMMARY: The objective of this study was to examine the effect of developmental stage and embryo age of in vitro produced bovine blastocysts after vitrification and thawing. In vitro cultured day 8 blastocysts after IVF were equilibrated 20% ethylene glycol (EG) for 3 min. and were vitrified using EFS40, which is consisted of 40% EG, 18% ficoll, 0.3 M sucrose and 10% FBS added in mDPBS for 30 sec. before being plunged into LN2. Also, survival in vitro was assessed by re-expansion and hatching or hatched at 24 h and 48 h postwarming, respectively. The results obtained in these experiments were summarized as follows; 1) When the embryos were cultured for 8 day after IVF, 41.0% of the cleaved embryos developed to the blastocysts (early; 7.6%, expanded; 22.9%, hatching; 4.6% and hatched; 5.9%). 2) When the embryos were exposed or vitrified to the freezing solution, the re-expansion of vitrified embryos (73.3%) was significantly lower than that of control and exposed embryos (100, 97.0%) (p<0.05). But the to formation rate of hatching or hatched blastocysts of vitrified embryos (66.7, 46.7%) at 48 h after thawing was similar to that of exposed embryos (66.7, 39.4%) but not control (100, 100%) (p<0.01). However in the total cell numbers of those developed hatched blastocysts, there were not significantly different among the treatment groups. 3) When the embryo survival rates by different developmental stage were examined, the re-expansion was not different among the groups (64.5~75.6%). After warming 48 h, the hatching and hatched formation of early blastocysts(25.8, 9.7%) was significantly lower than those of expanded (69.7, 39.4%) and hatching blastocysts (53.3, 43.3%) (p<0.05). 4) In addition, when the expanded blastocysts at day 7, 8 and 9 were vitrified, the re-expansion of day 8 and 9 embryos was significantly lower than that of day 7 (day 7; 93.9%, day 8; 75.8% and day 9; 87.5%) (p<0.05). However, the rates of development to hatched blastocysts were no difference among the groups (day 7; 36.4%, day 8; 36.4% and day 9; 31.3%). These results suggested that in vitro produced expanded or hatching blastocysts can be efficiently cryopreserved by the two-step vitrification method using EFS40.

MeSH Terms

Blastocyst*
Cell Count
Cryopreservation*
Embryonic Structures
Ethylene Glycol
Ficoll
Freezing
Sucrose
Survival Rate
Vitrification*
Ethylene Glycol
Ficoll
Sucrose