IMPROVED EMBRYO DEVELOPMENT AFTER USE OF IRVINE SCIENTIFIC'S NEXT GENERATION CONTINUOUS-CULTURE MEDIA (NXC)

Irvine Scientific's standard continuous culture media (CSC-Complete) was modified to create a new next generation media (NXC) with reduced lactate to improve metabolic conditions for the embryo. NXC was shown to improve blastocyst development and clinical outcomes in a company sponsored clinical trial. However, transitioning to a new culture media requires significant preclinical evaluation in the IVF laboratory. In addition, the productivity of the media should be analyzed continuously during clinical transition. To test whether the latest continuous-culture media from Irvine Scientific produces a better environment for embryo development. One-cell mouse embryos were thawed from Embryotech (Experiment #1, N=30) and Charles River Laboratories (Experiment #2, N=120). Embryoscope slide dishes were pre-equilibrated with either Control media (CSC-Complete) or Test media (NXC). Embryos were evaluated for up to 135 hours in the time-lapse incubator with regards to embryo developmental time points reached: 1) Time at the initiation of blastocyst hatching; 2) Time at a biopsy ready blastocyst and 3) Time at a fully hatched embryo. Chi-Squared analysis was used to evaluate embryo developmental outcomes immediately before and after the clinical transition to NXC. Mouse embryo developmental and clinical embryological outcomes are shown in Tables 1 and 2, respectively.Table 1Mouse Embryo AnalysisAverage hours at initiation of hatchingAverage hours at biopsy readyAverage hours at fully hatchedExperiment #1CSC-Complete104.4114.4127.0Experiment #1NXC102.4112.8127.1Experiment #2CSC-Complete111.5119.5127.2Experiment #2NXC108.9115.6127.1 Open table in a new tab Table 2Clinical Data AnalysisFertilization RateTotal-Usable BlastocystsGood/Fair Quality Blastocysts on Day 5Immediately before NXC Transition70.7%46.1%41.4%*Immediately after NXC Transition73.6%48.4%46.8%**p<0.05 Open table in a new tab *p<0.05 Both mouse experiments (Table 1) revealed NXC media gave a faster time to initiation of hatching and an overall earlier time to achieve a biopsy-ready embryo. This allows the laboratory to biopsy more embryos on a more optimal day of development, giving a better chance at a successful clinical outcome.