Hyperspectral imaging of the early embryo: can it detect chromosome abnormalities and predict IVF success?

摘要

Despite its wide-spread use, the success rate of assisted reproductive technologies including in vitro fertilization is lessthan 20%. Most human embryos are mosaic for chromosome abnormalities: containing cells that are euploid (normal) andaneuploid (incorrect number of chromosomes). Currently, a cell biopsy is used in IVF clinics to diagnose aneuploidy inthe embryo but this does not provide a diagnosis of how many cells are aneuploid in the entire embryo. Hence, thedevelopment of a non-invasive tool to determine the proportion of aneuploid cells would likely improve IVF success.Aneuploidy in human embryos leads to altered metabolism. The co-factors utilized in cellular metabolism areautofluorescent and can be used to predict the metabolic state of cells. Here we used hyperspectral imaging to noninvasivelyassess intracellular fluorophores and thus metabolism. In this study, we utilized a powerful model of embryoaneuploidy where we generate mouse embryos with differing ratios of euploid:aneuploid cells. We also used primaryhuman fibroblast cells with known aneuploidies to make comparison with euploid cells. Hyperspectral imaging of 1:3chimeric embryos showed a distinct spectral profile compare to the control/normal embryos. The abundance of FAD inthe inner cell mass (cells that form the fetus) of euploid and aneuploid blastocysts was strikingly different. For human celllines, we were able to clearly distinguish between euploid and aneuploid with different karyotypes. These data showhyperspectral imaging is able to distinguish cells based on their ploidy status making it a promising tool in assessingembryo mosaicism.