P–516 Evidence for self-correction in preimplantation embryos by comparative molecular karyotyping of blastocoele fluid, trophectoderm and inner cell mass
Authors: Zhigalina D , Skryabin N , Kanbekova O , Artyukhova V , Svetlakov A , Lebedev I 
Published: August 2021

Study question

Does the molecular karyotype of the cell-free DNA (cfDNA) from the blastocyst fluid (BF) can predict the efficiency of self-correction of karyotype of preimplantation embryo?

Summary answer

Detection of aneuploidies in the BF potentially can point out on effective self-correction of blastocyst karyotype and consequently on high developmental potential of mosaic embryos.

What is known already

Correction of aneuploidies in the preimplantation embryos can be provided by several mechanisms, including apoptosis. The predominant death of aneuploid cells was demonstrated in mouse embryos (Bolton, 2016). A positive correlation was also shown between the concentration of cfDNA from the BF of human blastocyst and the morphology of the embryo, as well as between the activity of caspase–3 and the concentration of cfDNA (Rule, 2018). The incidence of failed amplification after WGA being significantly higher among euploid blastocysts (Magli, 2019). The capacity of abnormal cells extruding into the BF would be related to the embryo development potential (Gianaroli, 2019).

Study design, size, duration

This is a prospective observational study of thirty-one Day 5 human blastocysts. Cryopreserved blastocysts were received after treatment cycles at the IVF Center with informed consent obtained from couples. The average age of 15 women was 32.25±5 years. The morphological characteristics of blastocysts were estimated in accordance with the Gardner classification (Gardner, Schoolcraft, 1999). The procedure of BF aspiration and trophectoderm (TE) and ICM cells separation of the blastocysts was previously described (Tsuiko, 2018).

Participants/materials, setting, methods

WGA was performed by PicoPLEX kit (Rubicon Genomics, USA) or REPLI-g Mini kit (Qiagen) according to manufacturer’s protocols. The DNA of the BF, ICM and TE were analyzed separately using cCGH, aCGH and NGS. SurePrint G3 Human CGH Microarrays (8x60K, Agilent Technologies) were used according to the manufacturer’s recommendations. Image analysis was done using ISIS (v.5.5) (Metasystems) and Agilent CytoGenomics Software (v.3). VeriSeq™ PGS Kit - MiSeq® System (Illumina) was used for NGS.

Main results and the role of chance

Molecular karyotypes of all three samples - BF, ICM and TE, were obtained for 23 (74.2%) blastocysts. A correlation between the woman’s age and the number of aneuploidies in cfDNA (p = 0.0009) was found. A positive correlation may indicate that the number of aneuploidies in the embryonic cells increases with the age of a woman, however, the embryonic karyotype undergoes self-correcting through the elimination of aneuploid cells. It was noted that well-developing blastocysts (groups 4–5, according to Gardner’s classification) had fewer aneuploidies in ICM (p = 0.0141) and TE (p = 0.0436). In contrast, there was a tendency to an increase in the number of aneuploidies in the BF during blastocysts transition from stage 3 to 5 (p = 0.3542). We assessed the relationship between the number of aneuploidies in groups of blastocysts with different characteristics of ICM (groups “A” and “B” according to Gardner’s classification). These groups significantly differ in the number of aneuploidies in cfDNA (p = 0.0352), although the statistically significant differences between the number of aneuploidies in ICM (p = 0.5992) and in TE (p = 0.5934) was not detected. Thus, higher-quality embryos in terms of ICM morphology contain more abnormalities in the BF, since in this group the elimination of aneuploid cells is more efficient.

Limitations, reasons for caution

The number of embryos is limited in this study. More comprehensive studies are required to confirm the observed tendency.

Wider implications of the findings: Aneuploid cells elimination can be a cause of increasing cfDNA concentration in the BF, which may be a marker of the viability of mosaic embryos when it is necessary to decide on mosaic embryo transfer. This study was supported by the RFBR (15–04–08265) and by the RSF (20–74–00064).

Trial registration number

Not applicable