Dai Nippon Printing Co., Ltd.

National Livestock Breeding Center

Kei Imai

Tomonori Akai

Masaki Ohtake

Satoshi Sugimura

Yoshio Aikawa

Sho Sanami

Yasuhito Oonishi

An object of the present invention is to provide a method for efficiently obtaining mammalian embryos having high conception rates. A first aspect of the present invention is a method for selecting a mammalian embryo prepared by in vitro culture from a fertilized egg, comprising a step of selecting an embryo using two or more of the following indicators: the time from fertilization to the completion of first cleavage; the morphology at a stage after first cleavage and before second cleavage; the morphology at a stage after third cleavage and before fourth cleavage; and the amount of oxygen consumed at the early blastocyst stage, the blastocyst stage, or the expanded blastocyst stage.

Method for producing embryos by in vitro culture, and method, apparatus, and system for selecting embryos

An object of the present invention is to provide a means for efficiently obtaining mammalian embryos having high conception rates. A first aspect of the present invention is a method for selecting a mammalian embryo prepared by in vitro culture from a fertilized egg, comprising a step of selecting an embryo using two or more of the following indicators: the time from fertilization to the completion of first cleavage; the morphology at a stage after first cleavage and before second cleavage; the morphology at a stage after third cleavage and before fourth cleavage; and the amount of oxygen consumed at the early blastocyst stage, the blastocyst stage, or the expanded blastocyst stage.

An embryo quality evaluation assistance system including an image pickup unit for picking up an image of the embryo, and a computer that communicates data with the embryo observing apparatus to assist quality evaluation of the embryo. The computer includes a time-series image storing unit that stores a time-series image picked up by the embryo observing apparatus, an embryo image extracting unit that extracts an embryo image from the time-series image, and an active site extracting unit that compares an embryo image based on a first time-series image with an embryo image based on a second time-series image picked up before or after a predetermined time from a pickup time of the first time-series image, and extracts as an active site a set of pixels when the difference between pixel values of corresponding pixels of the first and second time-series images is larger than a predetermined threshold value.

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Fukushima, Japan

Kei Imai