Further refinement of culture media is needed to improve the quality of embryos generated
in vitro. Previous results from our laboratory demonstrated that uptake of nutrients by the
embryo is significantly less than what is supplied in traditional culture media. Our objective
was to determine the impact of reduced nutrient concentrations in culture medium on mouse
embryo development, metabolism, and quality as a possible platform for next generation
medium formulation. Concentrations of carbohydrates, amino acids, and vitamins could be …

Materials and Methods Unless specified otherwise, all chemicals were supplied from
Millipore Sigma (St Louis, MO, USA. Nonessential amino acids (NEAA), essential amino
acids (EAA), vitamins, insulin, transferrin, and selenium (ITS), and gentamicin were
purchased from Corning (Mediatech, Manassas, VA, USA). All laboratory supplies and
chemical reagents were screened for their ability to support embryo development using a
sensitive mouse embryo assay before use in experiments 18. Animals. Outbred (Hsd: NSA …