ORIGINAL RESEARCH

Assessment of the zona pellucida microdissection on its thickness in mammalian embryos

About authors

1 Joint Institute for High Temperatures, Moscow, Russia

2 Institute of Gene Biology, Moscow, Russia

Correspondence should be addressed: Dmitry S. Sitnikov
Krasnokazarmennaya, 17а, Moscow, 111116, Russia; moc.liamg@sd.kintis

About paper

Funding: experimental studies of laser assisted hatching were performed using the unique scientific facility “Terawatt Femtosecond Laser Complex” in the Center for Collective Usage “Femtosecond Laser Complex” of JIHT RAS and were funded by the Ministry of Science and Higher Education of the Russian Federation (State Assignment № 075-01129-23-00). Embryos were obtained using the unique scientific facility Transgenebank and supported by the Ministry of Science and Higher Education of the Russian Federation (grant № 075-15-2021-668 of 29.07.2021).

Author contribution: Sitnikov DS — laser microsurgery, data processing, manuscript writing; Ilina IV — study concept, manuscript writing; Filatov MA — handling embryos, statistical processing, manuscript writing; Silaeva YuYu — management; discussion and manuscript editing — all authors.

Compliance with ethical standards: animals were handled in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki and the guidelines issued by the Bioethics Commission at the Institute of Gene Biology of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

Received: 2022-11-09 Accepted: 2022-12-30 Published online: 2023-01-27
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The zona pellucida (ZP) is a dynamically changing object that plays an important role during the preimplantation stage of embryogenesis. The ZP thickness may affect the implantation success and pregnancy rate, it is considered as a prognostic factor in a number of studies. The study was aimed to assess the dynamic changes in the mouse embryonic ZP thickness after laser assisted hatching (LAH) that involved breaching the ZP integrity at the blastocyst stage. Femtosecond laser pulses were used to perform the zona microsurgery. The zona thickness was measured both at the stage of blastocyst microsurgery (~Е3.5, i.e. 3.5 days of embryogenesis) and at the hatching stage (~Е5). Significant differences in the ZP thickness were revealed in the control group of embryos: from 6.21 µm (Е3.5) to 5.4 µm (Е5). The changes in thickness from 6.6 µm (Е3.5) to 6.2 µm (Е5) observed in the group subjected to LAH were non-significant. Tracing the ZP thickness of a particular embryo from the blastocyst stage to the hatching stage made it possible to estimate the thinning coefficients in the experimental and control groups. The findings that indicate lower tensile strength of the zona in case of LAH can provide the basis for further research on the ZP properties in case of using the embryo cryopreservation protocols.

Keywords: blastocyst, zona pellucida thickness, thinning, laser assisted hatching, femtosecond laser pulses

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