Is the mouse a clinically relevant model for human fertilization failures?
This study compares failed fertilization oocytes from patients participating in an in-vitro fertilization (IVF) programme with failed fertilization oocytes from B6SJLF1/J mice, in order to characterize and describe the distribution of DNA in oocytes that do not undergo normal fertilization. Our goal is to evaluate the mouse IVF system as a model to gain insight into reasons for human fertilization failures. All oocytes were stained with the vital fluorescent dye, Hoechst 33342, which rapidly stains double-stranded DNA. Of the 237 human oocytes that had been scored as failed fertilization by brightfield microscopy, 61 (25.7%) showed the presence of at least one spermatozoon within the oocyte cytoplasm. In contrast, out of 69 failed fertilization mouse oocytes, only one oocyte showed the presence of a spermatozoon within its cytoplasm. Mouse failed fertilization oocytes exhibited a significantly lower internal sperm rate (P < 0.0001) than human failed fertilization oocytes. Human failed
