Abstract
FERTILISATION in vitro has now been achieved in several mammalian species, including rabbit1, mouse2, golden hamster3, rat4, and man5. The possibility exists that the technique may increase the incidence of chromosomal anomalies through any of several mechanisms including meiotic disturbance in the oocyte associated with super-ovulation, fertilisation by two or more sperm as a result of a high sperm concentration and/or a change in the natural block to polyspermy, altered conditions of competition between sperm with normal and abnormal genomes, and disjunctional irregularities during early cleavage of the fertilised egg. To determine whether any of these possible types of abnormality are of real significance will require extensive investigation. As yet the limited published data from human6,7 and rabbit8 embryos are either too few to be useful or lack control observations. We have therefore made a cytogenetic study of the incidence of triploidy in mouse embryos following fertilisation in vivo and in vitro and have found a highly significant increase in triploidy in the in vitro group.
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FRASER, L., ZANELLOTTI, H., PATON, G. et al. Increased incidence of triploidy in embryos derived from mouse eggs fertilised in vitro. Nature 260, 39–40 (1976). https://doi.org/10.1038/260039a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/260039a0
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