Assessment of the Risk of Blastomere Biopsy during Preimplantation Genetic Diagnosis in a Mouse Model: Reducing Female Ovary Function with an Increase in Age by Proteomics Method

Preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) is important for screening genetic and chromosome mutations in embryos so that the efficiency of assisted reproductive treatment can be increased and birth defects can be decreased; however, some studies have reported a risk from this technology as well as other assisted reproductive technologies. We have developed a blastomere biopsy mouse model to assess the potential effects of blastomere biopsy that was one key procedure in PGD on the fertility of female mice at different ages. We showed that female fertility was decreased in the biopsied mouse model with an increase in age. Moreover, the ovarian weight, serum hormone levels, and the number of primordial, primary, preantral, and antral stage follicles were also decreased in the middle-aged biopsied mouse model. To elucidate the underlying molecular mechanism, we did proteomics analysis on ovarian tissues from puberty biopsied and nonbiopsied mice of the 23 differentially expressed proteins that were screened for in both groups, 3 proteins (PSMB8, ALDH1A1, and HSPA4) were selected and identified by Western blotting and quantitative RT-PCR methods, which showed the 3 proteins to regulate 12 cellular pathways. Furthermore, these three proteins were shown to be located in ovarian tissues, and the dynamic changes of expression profiling in middle-aged biopsied and nonbiopsied mice were demonstrated. The present study showed that blastomere biopsy technology impairs fertility when mice are middle-aged, which possibly resulted in abnormal expression profiling of PSMB8, ALDH1A1, and HSPA4 proteins. Thus, additional studies should be performed to assess the overall risk of blastomere biopsies during PGD procedures.