Immune factors in human embryo culture and their significance

Živilė Čerkienė^{1, 2}, Audronė Eidukaitė¹, Audronė Usonienė²

¹Institute of Immunology, Vilnius University, ²“Vaisingumo klinika,” Vilnius, Lithuania

Key words: immune factors; embryo; in vitro fertilization.

Summary. There is increasing evidence that human development before implantation is regulated by embryonically and maternally derived growth factors. The “regulators” of embryonic origin such as soluble human leukocyte antigen G, platelet-activating factor, Th1/Th2 cytokines, insulin-like growth factor, epidermal growth factor, transforming growth factor α, colony-stimulating factor, platelet-derived growth factor may be used as indicators of embryo viability and implantation potential. The data prove the influence of growth factors on the development and growth of preimplantation embryos. Though there is a lot of research in the field of biomarkers during folliculogenesis and maternal-fetal interface, only few of them deal with regulators derived from embryonic cells to the cultivation medium. The aim of our study was to summarize the research dealing with immune markers produced by embryos in vitro and to estimate their impact on the cell growth, viability and implantation potential.

Correspondence to Ž. Čerkienė, “Vaisingumo klinika”, Laisvės 64A, 05263 Vilnius, Lithuania. E-mail: c.zivile@gmail.com

Received 15 October 2008, accepted 6 April 2010