The contribution of paternal chromatin to chromosome segregation errors in human pre-implantation embryos.
Completed
- Conditions
- Embryo qualitysperm quality10013356
Recruitment & Eligibility
- Status
- Completed
- Sex
- Not specified
- Target Recruitment
- 621
Inclusion Criteria
Written informed consent
Exclusion Criteria
No surplus embryos available
Surplus embryos with excessive degeneration or fragmentation (>50%)
Study & Design
- Study Type
- Observational non invasive
- Study Design
- Not specified
- Primary Outcome Measures
Name Time Method <p>In the first part of the study, human tripronuclear zygotes and surplus embryos<br /><br>will be arrested at prometaphase by colcemid treatment, to visualize<br /><br>chromosomes and study protein markers by immunofluorescence. In addition mRNA<br /><br>expression of relevant genes will be assessed. The second part uses an<br /><br>established assay that generates a high frequency of chromosome attachment<br /><br>errors by treatment with monastrol, followed by monastrol withdrawal and<br /><br>monitoring of the correction of these attachment errors.<br /><br>For part I, the primary study parameter is presence and localization of a set<br /><br>of marker proteins, informative for heterochromatin formation and associated<br /><br>proteins on the pericentric region from paternal versus maternal chromosomes in<br /><br>embryos at different stages of development. For part II, the primary outcome<br /><br>measure is the frequency of alignment failure of paternal versus maternal<br /><br>chromosomes. </p><br>
- Secondary Outcome Measures
Name Time Method <p>N.A.</p><br>