Current Advancements in Noninvasive Profiling of the Embryo Culture Media Secretome

Abstract

There have been over 8 million babies born through in vitro fertilization (IVF) and this number continues to grow. There is a global trend to perform elective single embryo transfers, avoiding risks associated with multiple pregnancies. It is therefore important to understand where current research of noninvasive testing for embryos stands, and what are the most promising techniques currently used. Furthermore, it is important to identify the potential to translate research and development into clinically applicable methods that ultimately improve live birth and reduce time to pregnancy. The current focus in the field of human reproductive medicine is to develop a more rapid, quantitative, and noninvasive test. Some of the most promising fields of research for noninvasive assays comprise cell-free DNA analysis, microscopy techniques coupled with artificial intelligence (AI) and omics analysis of the spent blastocyst media. High-throughput proteomics and metabolomics technologies are valuable tools for noninvasive embryo analysis. The biggest advantages of such technology are that it can differentiate between the embryos that appear morphologically identical and has the potential to identify the ploidy status noninvasively prior to transfer in a fresh cycle or before vitrification for a later frozen embryo transfer.

Keywords: IVF; embryo screening; metabolomics; noninvasive; proteomics.

Figure 1

Schematic of materials found in spent blastocyst medium (SBM) that pose the diagnostic potential for embryo quality and ploidy status.

Figure 2

Pipeline of a high-throughput embryo analysis from a petri dish to a computational score outcome for the individual embryos. The pipeline goes from a non-invasive spent blastocyst medium (SBM) sample collection to the obtainment of final scoring that facilitated selection of the best available embryo for implantation.