Abstract
One in six couples worldwide has difficulty conceiving children in 2013. People have been suffering from infertility for the past two decades. In this research, Reproductive technology has been applied for the goal of improving the low pregnancy rate issues by integrating both microfluidic techniques and coculture of endometrial cells into enhance the embryo development in vitro. Traditional methods towards embryo development in vitro still required the complicated procedures which were all done manually for position the embryo, tracking each development, replacing medium and moving the embryo. The labor operation might increase the risks of cell damage. In this study, the comparison of embryo coculture with endometrial cells on chip and in dish was investigated. This master study proposed a design of an automated positioning single murine embryo by utilizing a hydraulic concept and electrical circuit analysis to reduce the operation procedure and adverse effects on organism. The coculture of embryo with endometrial cells within a dynamic perfusion system was also applied in this master study to mimic the embryo development in vivo. The dynamic perfusion system was performed to exclude the waste, provide fresh medium and be combined with the designed microchannels of specific microfluidic streamline in the coculture chamber to minimize the trapped bubbles to enhance the coculture environment in vitro for murine embryo culture. The automated embryo coculture device has been achieved in this study for the management of individual mammalian embryos by using the dynamic microarray format. The developed microsystem can manage and coculture individual embryos in each microchamber. The embryo development in whole culture period could be tracked via this microsystem design. 8-cell-stage murine embryos were used for the starting stage of embryo developments in our experiments. The results showed that the Blastocyst development rates in traditional method and device are 55.6±3.4% and 61.8±3.3%, respectively, for the monoculture group. They are 69.8±7.8% and 77.7±6.7%, respectively, for the coculture group. In addition, the microfluidic device developed in this master research is simple in operation, and is feasible to achieve the higher blastocyst rates. The coculture platform mimics the micro environment of embryo growth in vivo to enhance its overall development. An automated prototype is achieved through this master study. The development of individual embryo could be enhanced via this microsystem, which is a very promising coculture platform in vitro.