Submicroscopic localization of glycogen in mouse blastocysts developed in vivo and in blastocysts developed in vitro from two-cell embryos.

Ultrahistochemical method according to Thiéry (1967) was used to determine the occurrence and localization of glycogen in blastocysts developed in vivo and in blastocysts developed from 2-cell embryos of the mouse for 62 to 64 h in in vitro culture. The presence of glycogen was found in blastocysts of both experimental groups. Glycogen had a monoparticulate character, i.e. the form of beta-granules, localized above all in the ground cytoplasm of cells. Their size varied from 10 to 30 nm. In the blastocysts developed in the physiological uterine environment the glycogen content was relatively low, trophoblasts cells containing regularly a higher amount of glycogen particles than embryoblast cells. In the blastocysts developed in the culture medium in the presence of currently used energy sources the distribution and content of glycogen were clearly graded according to the cell types. Compared with the in vivo-blastocysts, an abnormally high amount of glycogen was observed in the cytoplasm of trophoblast cells, a medium amount in the prospective endoderm cells and the minimum amount in the prospective ectoderm cells. The authors are of the opinion that differences in the accumulation of glycogen and its occurrence in the individual cells are in connection with their position in the blastocyst and with their relation to the surrounding microenvironment. It can be judged from the findings of glycogen deposits inside autophagic vacuoles and multivesicular bodies as well as inside extracellular located sacs that simultaneously with glycogen accumulation there also proceeds its partial degradation in lysosomal structures of blastocyst cells.