Mouse zona pellucida dynamically changes its elasticity during oocyte maturation, fertilization and early embryo development
2006
A change in the elasticity of mouse
zona pellucidawas quantitatively evaluated during oocyte maturation, fertilization and early embryo development.
Young’s modulusof
zona pellucidaof germinal vesicle (GV), metaphase-II (MII), pronuclear (PN), 2cell, 4cell, 8cell, morulae (M) and early blastocyst (EB) stages was measured using a micro
tactile sensor(MTS) and a chamber exclusively designed for the measurement. The MTS has very high sensitivity and a deformation of only 5 μm was sufficient to calculate the
Young’s modulusand the oocyte/embryo maintained its original spherical shape during the measurement. The
Young’s modulusof GV, MII, PN, 2cell, 4cell, 8cell, M and EB was 22.8 ± 10.4 kPa (n = 30), 8.26 ± 5.22 kPa (n = 74), 22.3 ± 10.5 kPa (n = 66), 13.8 ± 3.54 kPa (n = 41), 12.6 ± 3.34 kPa (n = 19), 5.97 ± 4.97 kPa (n = 6), 1.88 ± 1.34 kPa (n = 8) and 3.39 ± 1.86 kPa (n = 4), respectively. Experimental results clearly demonstrated that the mouse
zona pellucidahardened following fertilization. Interestingly, once the
zona pellucidahardened at the PN stage, it gradually softened as the embryo developed (i.e. it was found that the
zonahardening is a transient phenomenon). Furthermore, the
zona pellucidaof the GV oocyte was as hard as that of the PN embryo and became soft as it matured to the MII stage. In addition, the safety of the MTS measurement for oocytes and embryos was discussed both theoretically and experimentally.
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