title: Developmental pattern of hexaploid mouse embryos produced by blastomere fusion of diploid and tetraploid embryos at the 2-cell stage.
abstract: Polyploid mouse embryos are important models for understanding the mechanisms of cleavage and preimplantation development in mammals. In this study, hexaploid (6n) mouse embryos were produced by the electrofusion of blastomeres from diploid (2n) and tetraploid (4n) embryos at the 2-cell stage. Furthermore, the developmental pattern of hexaploid embryos was evaluated by blastocyst rate, cell number, karyotype analysis, cytoskeleton staining and Oct-4 immunofluorescence. The results showed that 72.7% of the hexaploid embryos were able to develop to the blastocyst stage, which is a lower number than that found with normal diploid embryos (98.0%, p < 0.05). The cell number in hexaploid blastocyst was 12.3 +/- 2.0, which was less than that found in diploid or tetraploid blastocysts (41.2 +/- 7.2; 18.4 +/- 3.5). Karyotype analysis confirmed that the number of chromosomes in hexaploid embryos was 120. beta-Tubulin and Oct-4 immunofluorescence indicated that the hexaploid blastocysts were nearly lacking inner cell mass (ICM), but some blastomeres did show Oct-4-positive expression.
authors.affiliation: Department of Histology, Harbin Medical University, 194 Xuefu Road, Nangang District, Harbin 150081, China. leiys2002@yahoo.com
authors.forename: Lei
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Lei
authors.forename: Na
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Guan
authors.forename: Yan-Ning
authors.initials: YN
authors.lastname: Xu
authors.forename: Qing-Hua
authors.initials: QH
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.forename: Jing-Ling
authors.initials: JL
authors.lastname: Shen
authors.forename: Lian-Hong
authors.initials: LH
authors.lastname: Jin
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001755:Blastocyst / Q000166:cytology / Q000502:physiology*; D001757:Blastomeres / Q000502:physiology*; D002459:Cell Fusion; D002875:Chromosomes / Q000502:physiology; D004171:Diploidy; D047108:Embryonic Development / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D007621:Karyotyping; D051379:Mice; D008813:Mice, Inbred ICR; D050814:Octamer Transcription Factor-3 / Q000378:metabolism*; D011123:Polyploidy
chemical_list: D050814:Octamer Transcription Factor-3