Tumor Necrosis Factor Inhibits the Development of Mouse Embryos Co-cultured with Oviducts

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In the search for the underlying mechanism for infertility associated with endometriosis, the possible involvement of tumor necrosis factor (TNF) in peritoneal fluid was investigated. The concentrations of TNF in peritoneal fluid in infertile women with endometriosis were about five times as high as those found in infertile women without endometriosis. In in vitro experiments using mouse embryos, the addition of TNF alone had no effect on the development of 2-cell embryos during 24 hours incubation. Since peritoneal fluid freely goes into the oviductal cavity where early embryogenesis takes place, elevated TNF in peritoneal fluid inwomen with endometriosis may influence reproductive process by altering the intraductal microenvironment. As expected, the addition of TNF inhibited the development of 2-cell embryos co-cultured with the oviduct during 24 hours incubation. TNF exerted an inhibitory effect on 4-cell embryos as well, but not 8-cell embryos.<BR>Conditioned media harvested from the culture of the oviduct with TNF similarly inhibited the evelopment of 2-cell embryos. These results implicate that TNF in peritoneal fluid, may be a candidate responsible for impaired reproductive performance associated with endometriosis possibly by acting on the oviducts and stimulating the release of a certain humoral factor from them.
日本哺乳動物卵子学会の論文