Morphology-Based Rating of Egg Development Potential

描述(申请人提供)：这个第二阶段项目的目标是开发一种更有效的工具来评估人类卵母细胞的发展潜力，并降低低体外受精成功率(目前每个周期约为25%)的情感、健康和经济成本。为了弥补这些低比率，多达三个或更多的胚胎被移植给母亲--这种做法是多胎和往往早产的主要原因。低成功率还会导致多次、耗尽情绪和昂贵的干预。选择高质量卵母细胞的能力是取得成功结果的关键。这一应用的主要前提是对卵母细胞结构的可靠定量分析可以改进体外受精技术，并建议将一种新型的显微镜应用于这一任务，该显微镜可以测量双折射，这是一种在许多细胞结构元素中表现出的光学特性。与目前用于卵子评估的传统Hoffman或Dig光学提供的图像相比，使用CRI独特的液晶偏振光显微镜的非侵入性双折射成像通过测量视野中每个图像点的双折射延迟，显著和定量地突出了减数分裂纺锤体和其他细胞结构。第一阶段表明，卵母细胞结构的双折射成像提供了与胚胎发育和最终临床结果显著相关的信息。纺锤体可视化也被证明在评估冷冻保存的卵母细胞的生存能力方面是有用的，这是另一个关键的和未解决的问题。第二阶段的具体目标包括扩展功能以实现三维双折射的定量测量，添加功能以使手术更适合临床试管受精环境，开发大小适当并经过处理的玻璃底培养皿，开发软件工具和算法以提取有关生存能力和状况的更多定量信息，以及与三个Beta站点合作测试系统并提供关于有效性和操作的重要反馈。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The objective of this Phase II project is to develop a more effective tool for assessing the development potential of human oocytes and to reduce the emotional, health, and financial costs of low IVF success rates, presently approximately 25% per cycle. To compensate for these low rates, as many as three or more embryos are transferred to the mother-this practice is a leading cause of multiple and often premature births. Low success rates also lead to multiple, emotionally draining and expensive interventions. An ability to select high quality oocytes is critical to achieving successful outcomes. The main premise of this application is that reliable quantitative analysis of oocyte structures can improve IVF techniques, and proposes to apply to this task a new type of microscope that measures birefringence, an optical property exhibited in many cellular structural elements. Compared to images provided by traditional Hoffman or DIG optics presently used for oocyte assessment, non-invasive birefringence imaging using CRI's unique liquid crystal polarized light microscope dramatically and quantitatively highlights the meiotic spindle and other cellular structures by measuring birefringence retardation at each image point in the field of view. Phase I demonstrated that birefringence imaging of oocyte structures provides information that correlates significantly with embryo development and, ultimately, clinical outcome. Spindle visualization was also shown to be useful in assessing viability of cryopreserved oocytes, another critical and otherwise unsolved problem. Phase II specific aims include extending functionality to allow quantitative measurement of birefringence in three dimensions, adding features to make operation more suitable to the clinical IVF setting, developing an appropriately sized and treated glass-bottom dish, developing software tools and algorithms that extract additional quantitative information about viability and condition, and working with three beta-sites to test systems and provide vital feedback on effectiveness and operation.