Comparison of Embryo Development between Intracytoplasmic and Piezo-Assisted Sperm Injection after Treating Mouse Sperms by Ca2+ Ionophore

Authors
Abdolhossein Shahverdi
Mansoureh Movahedin
Mojtaba Rezazadeh Valojerdi
Saeid Kazemi Ashtiani
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Abstract
The purpose of this study was to evaluate the efficiency of intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI) and Piezo-assisted sperm injection after pretreatment with calcium ionophore (CaI) on the mouse embryo development. Methods: In this study, the conventional ICSI and Piezo-ICSI procedures were used. The efficacy of the methods was examined after mouse matured oocytes were fertilized with or without CaI-treated sperms. Results: Piezo-ICSI demonstrated significantly more favorable results, with a fertilization rate of 64% (conventional ICSI: 42%, P<0.001) and a cleavage rate of 73% (conventional ICSI: 58%, P<0.05). When the Piezo-ICSI procedure was performed with CaI-pretreated sperms, the cleavage rate significantly increased (92% vs. 73%, P<0.05). However, the fertilization rate did not change significantly (64% vs. 56%). Conclusion: The Piezo-ICSI accompanies with CaI-treated sperms is more efficient than the conventional ICSI method for fertilizing and thus obtaining more mouse embryos.
Keywords
INTRACYTOPLASMIC SPERM INJECTION (ICSI)
Piezo
Sperm activation
Embryo Development
Iranian Biomedical Journal
Volume 11, Issue 4 - Serial Number 35
September and October 2007
Pages 245-250