Study of the mechanical properties of fresh and cryopreserved individual human oocytes.

Study of the mechanical properties of fresh and cryopreserved individual human oocytes. Eur Biophys J. 2019 Jun 22;: Authors: Giolo E, Martinelli M, Luppi S, Romano F, Ricci G, Lazzarino M, Andolfi L Abstract In assisted reproduction technologies, the cryopreservation of oocytes is a common procedure used to circumvent female infertility. However, some morphological and functional alterations of oocytes have been observed depending on the protocol applied. In this work, the mechanical response of individual human oocytes before and after a freeze-thawing procedure was characterised. Oocytes, immediately after retrieval, were morphologically evaluated by bright-field optical microscopy and their elasticity measured by indentation measurements using atomic force microscopy. Oocytes were then frozen according to the open-vitrification protocol and stored in liquid nitrogen. Afterwards, the same oocytes were thawed and the indentation measurements repeated. Using this approach, we can follow the elasticity of a set of single oocytes from retrieval up to the freeze-thawing procedure. The analysis of the resulting data shows that the retrieved healthy oocytes, which preserve their healthy morphological features after cryopreservation, maintain unchanged also in stiffness values. In contrast, oocytes having dysmorphic characteristics, before and/or after freeze-thawing, show significant variations in their mechanical response. In addition, ...
Source: European Biophysics Journal : EBJ - Category: Physics Authors: Tags: Eur Biophys J Source Type: research