189-192Although numerous investigations have
demonstrated the beneficial effects of co-culture system of different somatic
cells on in vitro development of
embryos, the effects of conditioned-media of co-culture cells have not been
well documented. The objective of this study was to compare the effects of
human granulosa cells co-culture system and its conditioned medium on the
developmental rate of mouse embryos in
vitro. Two sets of experiments were undertaken; in the first one 317 mouse
one-cell embryos were cultured in human granulosa cell co-culture system (GC),
Ham’s F10 medium conditioned with granulosa cells (CM) and non-conditioned
Ham’s F10 for 120 h. In the second experiment, 391 late two-cell embryos were
cultured in the 3 fore-mentioned culture treatments for 72 h. Embryos were
obtained from NMRI mice. Granulosa cells were collected from patients
undergoing an IVF program during oocyte pickup. In the first set of
experiments, 23.6, 14.5 and 11.1% of one-cell embryos passed two-cell block and
continued growing to 4-cell in GC, CM and HF, respectively. This index in GC
was significantly different from two other treatments. Also significantly more
embryos reached blastocyst stage in GC compared with two other treatments. The
blastocyst rate was not significantly different between CM and HF. In the
second set of experiments the proportion of blastocyst stage was significantly
higher in CM than that in HF and lower than that in GC. In conclusion, although
human granulosa cell-conditioned medium has beneficial effects on mouse embryo
development, it was not as effective as co-culture of these cells