Newcastle Fertility Centre, Newcastle upon Tyne, England, United Kingdom.
PLoS One. 2012;7(2):e31010. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0031010. Epub 2012 Feb 29.
In vitro fertilisation (IVF) and related technologies are arguably the most challenging of all cell culture applications. The starting material is a single cell from which one aims to produce an embryo capable of establishing a pregnancy eventually leading to a live birth. Laboratory processing during IVF treatment requires open manipulations of gametes and embryos, which typically involves exposure to ambient conditions. To reduce the risk of cellular stress, we have developed a totally enclosed system of interlinked isolator-based workstations designed to maintain oocytes and embryos in a physiological environment throughout the IVF process. Comparison of clinical and laboratory data before and after the introduction of the new system revealed that significantly more embryos developed to the blastocyst stage in the enclosed isolator-based system compared with conventional open-fronted laminar flow hoods. Moreover, blastocysts produced in the isolator-based system contained significantly more cells and their development was accelerated. Consistent with this, the introduction of the enclosed system was accompanied by a significant increase in the clinical pregnancy rate and in the proportion of embryos implanting following transfer to the uterus. The data indicate that protection from ambient conditions promotes improved development of human embryos. Importantly, we found that it was entirely feasible to conduct all IVF-related procedures in the isolator-based workstations.
体外受精（IVF）和相关技术可以说是所有细胞培养应用中最具挑战性的。起始材料是一个单细胞，我们旨在从这个细胞中培养出一个能够着床妊娠最终导致活产的胚胎。IVF 治疗过程中的实验室处理需要对配子和胚胎进行开放式操作，这通常涉及到暴露在环境条件下。为了降低细胞应激的风险，我们开发了一种完全封闭的、基于隔离器的工作站互联系统，旨在在整个 IVF 过程中维持卵子和胚胎处于生理环境中。在引入新系统前后对临床和实验室数据的比较表明，与传统的开放式层流罩相比，在封闭的基于隔离器的系统中，显著有更多的胚胎发育到囊胚阶段。此外，基于隔离器系统产生的囊胚含有更多的细胞，其发育也更快。与此一致的是，引入封闭系统伴随着临床妊娠率和胚胎移植到子宫后着床比例的显著增加。这些数据表明，避免环境条件的影响有助于提高人类胚胎的发育。重要的是，我们发现完全可以在基于隔离器的工作站中进行所有与 IVF 相关的操作。
