Zhang Yichuan, Li Tianjie, Wang Yibo, Yu Yang
Reproduction. 2025 Feb 4;169(3). doi: 10.1530/REP-24-0275. Print 2025 Mar 1.
Glucose metabolism is central to the successful progression from oocyte maturation to blastocyst formation, influencing not only energy production but also key developmental decisions and epigenetic regulation. This review uncovers the intricate interplay between glucose, fatty acids, amino acids and nucleotides, highlighting their crucial roles in early embryonic development and exploring how noninvasive metabolic monitoring can revolutionize embryo selection and personalized assisted reproductive technologies, offering new hope for fertility treatments.
In recent decades, it has become increasingly clear that mammalian gametes and early embryos are highly sensitive to metabolic substrates. With advances in single-cell sequencing, metabolomics and bioinformatics, we now recognize that metabolic pathways not only meet cellular energy demands but also play a critical role in cell proliferation, differentiation and fate determination. Investigating metabolic processes during oocyte maturation and early embryonic development is thus essential to advancing reproductive medicine and embryology. This review highlights the intricate metabolic pathways, particularly glucose metabolism, that drive the transition from an oocyte to an embryo. These processes involve a complex interaction of signaling pathways, nutrient availability and environmental factors, with glucose metabolism not only providing essential energy but also offering a variety of metabolic substrates and intermediates that regulate developmental events, influence cell signaling and impact epigenetic modifications. This article emphasizes that future research will focus on regulating maternal metabolic environments and noninvasive metabolic monitoring of embryonic systems, particularly glucose metabolism, with promising opportunities to improve embryo selection and personalized assisted reproductive technologies, ultimately enhancing fertility treatment outcomes.
葡萄糖代谢对于从卵母细胞成熟到囊胚形成的成功进程至关重要，不仅影响能量产生，还影响关键的发育决策和表观遗传调控。本综述揭示了葡萄糖、脂肪酸、氨基酸和核苷酸之间复杂的相互作用，强调了它们在早期胚胎发育中的关键作用，并探讨了非侵入性代谢监测如何能够彻底改变胚胎选择和个性化辅助生殖技术，为生育治疗带来新希望。
近几十年来，越来越明显的是，哺乳动物的配子和早期胚胎对代谢底物高度敏感。随着单细胞测序、代谢组学和生物信息学的发展，我们现在认识到代谢途径不仅满足细胞的能量需求，而且在细胞增殖、分化和命运决定中也起着关键作用。因此，研究卵母细胞成熟和早期胚胎发育过程中的代谢过程对于推进生殖医学和胚胎学至关重要。本综述重点介绍了驱动从卵母细胞向胚胎转变的复杂代谢途径，特别是葡萄糖代谢。这些过程涉及信号通路、营养物质可用性和环境因素的复杂相互作用，葡萄糖代谢不仅提供必需的能量，还提供多种代谢底物和中间体，这些物质调节发育事件、影响细胞信号传导并影响表观遗传修饰。本文强调，未来的研究将集中在调节母体代谢环境和对胚胎系统进行非侵入性代谢监测，特别是葡萄糖代谢，这为改善胚胎选择和个性化辅助生殖技术提供了有希望的机会，最终提高生育治疗效果。
