The effects of temperature variation treatments on embryonic development: a mouse study

Since the development of ART, embryos have been cultured at 37 °C in an attempt to mimic the in vivo conditions and the average body temperature of an adult. However, a gradient of temperatures within the reproductive tract has been demonstrated in humans and several other mammalian species. Therefore, the aim of this study was to evaluate the effects of temperature variation treatments on mouse embryo quality through morphokinetic events, blastocyst morphology, the relative gene expression of Igf2, Bax, Bcl2 and Apaf1 and the metabolomics of individual culture media. Study groups consisted of 2 circadian treatments, T1 with embryos being cultured at 37 °C during the day and 35.5 °C during the night, T2 with 38.5 °C during the day and 37 °C during the night and a control group with constant 37 °C. Our main findings are that the lower-temperature group (T1) showed a consistent negative effect on mouse embryo development with “slow” cleaving embryos, poor-quality blastocysts, a higher expression of the apoptotic gene Apaf1, and a significantly different set of amino acids representing a more stressed metabolism. On the other hand, our higher-temperature group (T2) showed similar results to the control group, with no adverse effects on blastocyst viability.