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Oocyte Vitrification Temporarily Turns on Oxidation-Reduction Process Genes in Mouse Preimplantation Embryos

  • Reproductive Biology: Original Article
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Abstract

We aim to understand how oocyte vitrification impacts subsequent mouse preimplantation embryo development at molecular level. We profiled transcriptomics of fertilized preimplantation embryos derived from mouse vitrified-warmed oocytes. Concomitantly, we evaluated epigenetic markers in fertilized preimplantation embryos. We found that oocyte vitrification did not affect the fertilization and cleavage process but delayed embryo development until blastocyst stage. RNA sequencing revealed that 1575 genes were profoundly altered in the 2-cell stage embryos developed from vitrified oocytes. The most significantly altered biological pathway was “oxidation-reduction process.” Such profound transcriptomics change was associated with decreased level of oocyte-specific histone H1FOO in zygote and 2-cell stage. Transcriptome alteration due to oocyte vitrification was less pronounced as embryos develop into the morula stage. Oocyte vitrification temporarily changes transcriptomics in early preimplantation embryos. Targeting oxidation-reduction pathway might be a potential therapeutic strategy to improve embryo quality and long-term embryo survival.

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Abbreviations

IVF:

in vitro fertilization

MII:

metaphase II

FPKM:

Fragments per Kilobase Million

DEGs:

different expression genes

ZGA:

zygotic genome activation

GO:

Gene Ontology

COCs:

cumulus-oocyte complexes

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Funding

This research is supported by (1) the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Funding No. 81601342). (2) Shanghai Municipal Planning Commission of Science and Research Fund (General Program, No. 201740075)

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Shanghai Ji Ai Genetics & IVF Institute, Obstetrics & Gynecology Hospital, Fudan University, Shanghai, China

    Gu Ruihuan, Li Zhichao, Guo Song, Fu Jing, Sun Yijuan & Sun Xiaoxi

  2. Key Laboratory of Female Reproductive Endocrine Related Diseases, Obstetrics & Gynecology Hospital, Fudan University, Shanghai, China

    Sun Xiaoxi

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  1. Gu Ruihuan
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  2. Li Zhichao
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  3. Guo Song
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  4. Fu Jing
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  5. Sun Yijuan
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Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Sun Yijuan or Sun Xiaoxi.

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All animal experiments were performed following the ethical guidelines of Obstetrics & Gynecology Hospital, Fudan University, and the Animal Ethics Committee approved this project.

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Supplemental Figure 1

A. Violin plot for log2(FPKM+1) of all genes across all samples, showing the boxplot of normalized FPKMs across all the samples. B. Spearman correlation coefficiency (SCC) of gene log2(FPKM+1) for paired samples. C. The PCA score plot (PC2 vs. PC3). (PDF 1212 kb)

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Ruihuan, G., Zhichao, L., Song, G. et al. Oocyte Vitrification Temporarily Turns on Oxidation-Reduction Process Genes in Mouse Preimplantation Embryos. Reprod. Sci. 28, 1307–1315 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s43032-020-00337-w

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s43032-020-00337-w

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