The effect of culture medium volume on in vitro development of mouse embryos

Background: in the field of mammalian embryo culture, the putative influence of autocrinelparacrine factor(s), produce by the embryos itself, is under investigation. a smaller medium dropcan prevent dilution of this factor(s) .objective: the objective of this study was to examine the effect of culture medium volume on invitro development of mouse 2-cell embryos.materials and methods: the embryos were obtained from female nmri mice. to evaluate theeffect of medium volume, groups of 16-20 late 2-cell embryos were cultured in 2, 5, 10, 20, 50 and100 jli of drops of ham's flo medium for 72 h.results: development to blastocyst stage in 50 and 100 jli of drop were significantly higher thanthis in any other volume (p<0.001). almost a similar pattern was also observed for hatchedblastocyst formation. however, the total number of cells in blastocysts, developing in differentvolumes, were not significantly different.conclusion: these results indicate that the optimal volumes of ham's flo medium for mouse earlyembryo development are 50 to 100 ul. however, volumes as small as 2 jli can successfully supportmouse 2-cell embryo development to blastocyst and hatching stages.