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Increased mortality during early embryonic development after in-vitro fertilization of rat oocytes

Summary. Immature female rats (60–65 g) were injected with 4 i.u. PMSG on Day – 2, and allocated to 3 groups. For Groups I and II, unmated donors were killed 67–69 h after PMSG injection, shortly after the expected time of ovulation. Oocytes were recovered from the oviducts and transferred immediately into the oviduct of mated recipients (Group I) whose ipsilateral ovary had been exposed by peeling back the bursa, preventing endogenous oocytes from entering the oviduct, or were fertilized in vitro (Group II) and were transferred 16–18 h later. Rats in Group III were allowed to mate and half were killed 6 h after mating. The fertilized oocytes were then incubated for 10–12 h until transfer. The remaining rats in Group III were killed 16–18 h after mating and fertilized oocytes were collected and transferred immediately. Recipient rats were killed on Days 2, 5, 8 and 20.

Zygotes resulting from in-vitro fertilization (Group II) were as able as those fertilized in donors (Group III) or recipients (Group I) to develop to the 2-cell stage, but underwent significantly greater embryonic loss beyond this stage of development. There was a slower rate of development of such oocytes to the blastocyst stage (Day 5) and a lower mean weight of implantation sites (Day 8). Transfer of zygotes after in-vitro fertilization resulted in a loss of 35% of the embryos at the time of implantation.

These results suggest that in-vitro fertilization of rat oocytes leads to defects in the embryos causing a delay in early embryo development and a large number of implantation losses.

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