Dynamic Imaging of Preimplantation Embryos in the Murine Oviduct

Studying the dynamic events involved in early preimplantation embryo development during their transport from the ovary to the uterus is of great significance to improve the understanding of infertility, and eventually to help reduce the infertility rate. The mouse is a widely used mammalian model in reproductive biology, however, dynamic imaging studies of mouse preimplantation embryos have been very limited due to the lack of proper imaging tools for such analysis. Here, we introduce an innovative approach, which can potentially be used for three-dimensional imaging and tracking of murine oocytes with optical coherence tomography (OCT) as they exit the ovary and migrate through the oviduct to the uterus. The imaging is performed with spectral-domain OCT system operating at 70 kHz A-scan rate. The preimplantation embryos and surrounding cumulus cells can be clearly visualized. Results from our experiments indicate that OCT has great potential for dynamic imaging of the oviduct and oocyte tracking, which provides the foundation for future investigations aimed at understanding dynamic events during preimplantation stages in normal development as well as in mouse models of infertility.