the embryo gps® dish - IVFOnline.com

Comparison of GPS and standard dishes for embryo culture: set-up andobservation times, and embryo developmentRieger, D.; Schimmel, T.; Cohen, J.; Cecchi, M.Introduction: Embryos are routinely cultured under oil in standard cell-culture dishes, in microdrops of medium thatcan flatten or run together. The embryos can be difficult to locate and examine at the edge of the microdrop. In the GPSdish, the medium is constrained in microwells. The bottoms of the wells are concave and parafocal to facilitate locationand examination of the embryos. The objectives of this study were to the compare the time required for preparation andembryo evaluation, and to compare the development of mouse embryos, between microdrop culture and culture in theGPS wells.Materials & Methods: On Day 0, ten standard 60 mm dishes (Nunc 150288, VWR Scientific) and ten GPS dishes(IVFonline, developed by authors TS, JC & MC) were loaded with 13 ml of oil. In each standard dish, eleven 50 μlmicrodrops of KSOM + 10 mg/ml BSA were under-laid on the surface of the dish. In each GPS dish, 50 μl of mediumwas under-laid into each of 11 wells. All dishes were held overnight at 37.3°C under 5% CO 2 in air. On Day 1, 100mouse zygotes were randomly assigned to be cultured in microdrops in the standard dishes, or in microwells of theGPS dishes. In each standard dish, 5 embryos were washed through 3 microdrops and placed in individual microdropsfor culture. In GPS dishes, 5 embryos were washed through 3 wells and cultured in individual wells. Embryodevelopment was evaluated on Days 2, 3, 4 and 5 and compared between the dish types by Chi-square analysis. Thetimes to set-up, and to evaluate each dish on each day, were recorded and compared between the dish types byKruskal-Wallis tests.Results: A significantly greater proportion of embryos cultured in GPS dishes developed to the morula stage andcompacted on Day 3, compared with embryos cultured in microdrops in standard dishes (Table 1). There were nodifferences in development on Days 2, 4 or 5. The mean times required to set-up the dishes on Day 1, and to evaluatethe embryos on Day 2, 3, 4 and 5, were all significantly less for GPS dishes than for standard dishes (Table 2).Table 1. Embryo development. Values are percentages of 50 zygotes.Development GPS Standard PCleavage on Day 2 100.0 98.0 1.000Morulae on Day 3 58.0 28.0 0.002Compacted on Day 3 92.0 78.0 0.050Blastocyst on Day 4 98.0 98.0 1.000Expanded blastocyst on Day 4 64.0 58.0 0.539Blastocyst on Day 5 98.0 96.0 0.558Expanded blastocyst on Day 5 96.0 92.0 0.400Hatched blastocyst on Day 5 2.0 2.0 1.000Table 2. Procedure times. Values are minutes/dish (mean ± sem, N = 10).Procedure GPS Standard PSet-up on Day 1 1.36 ± 0.04 1.56 ± 0.03 0.004Evaluation on Day 2 0.90 ± 0.09 1.63 ± 0.05 < 0.001Evaluation on Day 3 1.33 ± 0.11 1.90 ± 0.13 0.007Evaluation on Day 4 1.84 ± 0.12 2.58 ± 0.15 0.002Evaluation on Day 5 1.36 ± 0.06 2.34 ± 0.14 < 0.001Conclusions: Development to blastocyst by Day 5 was not different between embryos cultured in wells of the GPSdish and those cultured in microdrops in standard dishes, indicating that the GPS dishes support embryo developmentas well as do the standard dishes. The times required to set up the dishes and to evaluate the embryos were allsignificantly less for the GPS dishes than for the standard dishes. It is not clear why development on Day 3 was betterfor embryos cultured in the GPS dishes than for those cultured in the standard dishes, but may be related to the reducedtime outside the incubator. The results suggest that the use of GPS dishes for human embryo culture could reduce timeand labor costs in ART laboratories, and perhaps improve embryo development.www.IVFonline.comwww.SunIVF.com