156 ENHANCED BOVINE EMBRYONIC DEVELOPMENT AFTER MICROFLUIDIC CUMULUS CELL REMOVAL POST-FERTILIZATION
A. Reeder A , R. Monson A , D. Beebe B , B. Lindsey C and J. Rutledge AA Department of Animal Sciences, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI 53106, USA
B Department of Biomedical Engineering, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI 53706, USA
C Minitube of America, Verona, WI 53593, USA. Email: alreeder@wisc.edu
Reproduction, Fertility and Development 17(2) 228-229 https://doi.org/10.1071/RDv17n2Ab156
Submitted: 1 August 2004 Accepted: 1 October 2004 Published: 1 January 2005
Abstract
Microfluidic technologies are increasingly being used in cell biology and embryology research. In order to manipulate an embryonic environment microfluidics take advantage of miniscule media amounts. With the use of pressure heads and laminar flow profiles, a presumptive zygote can be gently manipulated in a microfluidic device for removal of the supporting cumulus cells post-fertilization. Presumptive embryos were assigned at random to three cumulus removal treatments at 48 h post-fertilization: vortexing (3 min), handstripping (with 135-μm-ID stripping pipette), and microfluidics. Blastocyst rates were determined through Day 8 post-fertilization. Rates were analyzed by the GENMOD procedure in SAS (SAS Institute, Inc., Cary, NC, USA), accounting for replicates and treatment. Kinetics of development were also impacted as larger proportions of embryos in the microfluidic group reached the blastocyst stage before embryos of the vortex or hand-stripping treatments. These data suggest that cumulus cell removal in a gentle fashion is associated with enhanced embryonic development in the bovine.
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