Effects of different concentrations of amino acids in the culture medium on preimplantation mouse embryo development in vitro.
OBJECTIVE
To evaluate the effects of amino acids (AA) on the development of in vitro cultured preimplantation embryos of Kunming mice, and define the optimal AA concentration for embryo culture.


METHODS
Totally 630 zygotes were collected from the oviducts of superovulated female Kunming mice, which were cultured in protein-free potassium simplex optimized medium (mKSOM) supplemented with Eagle's essential amino acids and Eagle's non-essential amino acids of different concentrations (mKSOM, mKSOM+1/16AA, mKSOM+1/8AA, mKSOM+1/4AA, mKSOM+1/2AA, mKSOM+AA, and mKSOM+2AA).


RESULTS
The embryos cultured with the amino acids showed higher development rate to both 8-cell embryo stage and blastocyst stage than those cultured without amino acids. The correlation of amino acid concentration with 8-cell and blastocyst development rates conformed to the cubic model, with the highest development rate to both of the two stages observed at half of the amino acid concentration.


CONCLUSIONS
Amino acids can promote the development of preimplantation Kunming mouse embryos, but excessively high concentration of amino acids impair embryo development possibly because of metabolic and osmotic pressure changes of the embryos as well as toxicity of ammonium resulting from the metabolism of amino acids.
Deng
Xing
X
Department of Pathology, Southern Medical University, Guangzhou 510515, China. dengxing80@126.com
Wang
Shuang
S
Huang
Wu-Jian
WJ
Liu
Qiu-Zhen
QZ
Xie
Wei-Bing
WB
Zhang
Qing-Ling
QL
Fang
Wei-Yi
WY
Liu
Teng-Fei
TF
Han
Chun
C
DU
Sha-Sha
SS
Wu
Li-Sha
LS
Ding
Yan-Qing
YQ
Yao
Kai-Tai
KT
D000596:Amino Acids / Q000494:pharmacology*; D000818:Animals; D003470:Culture Media; D004305:Dose-Response Relationship, Drug; D004622:Embryo, Mammalian / Q000196:embryology; D047108:Embryonic Development / Q000187:drug effects*; D005260:Female; D008297:Male; D051379:Mice; D009924:Organ Culture Techniques; D015053:Zygote / Q000166:cytology*
D000596:Amino Acids; D003470:Culture Media