Use of in vitro fertilization and embryo transfer to circumvent infertility caused by an inherited imperforate vagina in mice.

An autosomal recessive mutation (ipv) causing infertility in homozygous females (ipv/ipv) because of imperforate vaginae was discovered in a line of mice selected for low lean tissue mass as a proportion of body weight. The aim of this study was to determine if the mutation could be propagated in offspring following embryo transfer of oocytes collected from mutant females and fertilized in vitro with sperm from males known to carry the gene (ipv/?). Caudal epididymal sperm were incubated with cumulus-enclosed oocytes for 8-10 hr in tissue culture medium 199 + 5% fetal calf serum + 0.4% bovine serum albumin. Oocytes possessing at least two pronuclei were transferred to recipient CD-1 females which had been mated 24 hr earlier to vasectomized males. A total of 683 oocytes was collected from 27 superovulated mutant females. A large proportion of the oocytes was abnormal as evidenced by cytoplasmic fragmentation (259/683, 38%). Seventy-eight percent (331/424) of the normal oocytes were fertilized and 181 of these were transferred to 10 recipients. Six of 10 recipients delivered 38 offspring (24 females, 14 males). Fifty-eight percent (14/24) of the female offspring displayed an imperforate vagina. The results demonstrate that in vitro fertilization and embryo transfer can be used for propagating a mutant gene that causes infertility in females.