Liu Jun, Tang Shuang, Xu Wei, Wang Yongsheng, Yin Baoying, Zhang Yong
Key Laboratory of Animal Reproductive Physiology & Embryo Technology of the Ministry of Agriculture, College of Veterinary Medicine, Northwest A&F University, Yangling, Shaanxi 712100, China.
Zygote. 2011 May;19(2):137-45. doi: 10.1017/S0967199410000249. Epub 2010 Jun 30.
The effects of specific components in culture medium on embryo physiology have been extensively investigated to optimize in vitro culture systems; however, little attention has been paid to antibiotics, the reagents used most commonly in culture systems to prevent contamination. To investigate the potential effects of routine use of antibiotics on cultured embryos, mouse zygotes were cultured with or without antibiotics. In both groups, the developmental rate and cell number of blastocysts appear to be normal. The proportion of embryos with blastomere fragmentation increased slightly when embryos were cultured with antibiotics. In contrast, the presence of antibiotics in the embryo culture system significantly disturbs expression of zygotically activated genes, damages chromatin integrity and increases apoptosis of cultured embryos. These results provide evidence that, when cultured with antibiotics, embryos with normal appearance may possess intrinsic physiological and genetic abnormalities. We demonstrate that the adverse effects of antibiotics on mammalian embryos are more severe than we previously presumed and that antibiotics are not essential for sterility of embryo culture system therefore abolishing antibiotic supplementation during embryo culture.
为优化体外培养系统，人们对培养基中的特定成分对胚胎生理学的影响进行了广泛研究；然而，对于抗生素（培养系统中最常用于防止污染的试剂）却很少有人关注。为了研究常规使用抗生素对培养胚胎的潜在影响，将小鼠受精卵分别在添加或不添加抗生素的条件下进行培养。在两组中，囊胚的发育率和细胞数量似乎都是正常的。当胚胎在添加抗生素的情况下培养时，具有卵裂球碎片化的胚胎比例略有增加。相反，胚胎培养系统中抗生素的存在会显著干扰合子激活基因的表达，破坏染色质完整性，并增加培养胚胎的凋亡。这些结果证明，在添加抗生素培养时，外观正常的胚胎可能存在内在的生理和遗传异常。我们证明，抗生素对哺乳动物胚胎的不利影响比我们之前推测的更为严重，并且抗生素对于胚胎培养系统的无菌性并非必不可少，因此在胚胎培养过程中应取消抗生素添加。
