PMID: 18419052Apr 19, 2008Paper

Effects of retinoic acid on morula-stage embryo development in mice

Chang Gung Medical Journal
Fu-Jen Huang

Abstract

In a previous study, we investigated the short-term effects of in utero retinoic acid (RA) exposure on early development at the cleavage stage before implantation to understand the possible roles of RA in blastocyst formation. We designed the present study to investigate the long-term effects of RA exposure on pre-implantation embryos in vivo and in vitro. To evaluate late pre-implantation exposure to RA, pregnant female mice were fed peanut oil with 50 mg/kg RA by oral gavage in the late afternoon of day 2 and early morning of day 3 of gestation. Mice were sacrificed on day 8. The number and morphology of embryos were recorded. The morula-stage embryos were treated with different doses of t-RA for 1 day and were cultured for the following 7 days in vitro. The post-implantation development in vitro was evaluated. The in vivo study showed that the rate of blastocyst implantation was not significantly different (9.2 vs 10.2 per mouse) and the rate of post-implantation embryo resorption was significantly higher in retinoic acid treated mice than in controls (35% vs 0%). RA was administered to morula-stage embryos at levels of 0, 0.001 micro, 0.1 micro, or 10 micro M throughout in vitro culture. For embryos that continued to develo...Continue Reading

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