Elsevier

Fertility and Sterility

Volume 108, Issue 5, November 2017, Pages 742-747
Fertility and Sterility

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Mitochondrial DNA quantity as a biomarker for blastocyst implantation potential

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Of all the factors currently available for the evaluation of embryonic potential, chromosomal status appears to be the most definitive. The debate around this hotly contested issue does not focus on the question of whether aneuploidy is detrimental to development, but on whether current preimplantation genetic testing for aneuploidy methods are capable of accurately determining whether an embryo is chromosomally normal, aneuploid or a mixture of normal and abnormal cells (i.e., mosaic). Despite the importance of aneuploidy, it is clear that this is only one factor amongst many of relevance to embryo viability, as evidenced by the fact that even the transfer of a chromosomally normal embryo cannot guarantee a pregnancy. Mounting evidence supports the hypothesis that blastocysts having unusually high levels of mitochondrial DNA detected in the trophectoderm have greatly reduced implantation potential, but there remain significant areas where further validation is necessary and where our understanding is currently inadequate. This should provide fertile ground for future research and is likely to yield some fascinating insights in the coming years.

Key Words

implantation
mitochondrial DNA
embryo viability

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D.W. has nothing to disclose.

Support received from the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Oxford Biomedical Research Centre Programme; and the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health & Human Development (award number R01HD092550).

The content of this paper is solely the responsibility of the author and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health.