An oil overlay plays an important role by stabilizing in vitro culture conditions of gametes and embryos in terms of temperature, pH and osmolality. Without the overlay, the medium evaporates quickly, even when growing in humid incubators.
Mineral and paraffin oils are commonly used to overlay IVF media to maintain their stability throughout embryo culture, but their quality can vary greatly. Toxic elements present in crude oil such as unsaturated/aromatics hydrocarbons, short volatile carbon chains, peroxides and other undefined compounds could contaminate oils used in IVF laboratories. Furthermore, the polycarbonate lipid tail in mineral oil contains more unsaturated bonds than paraffin oil, a mineral product being therefore more sensitive to photooxidation and peroxidation.
An oil overlay used to cover drops of media provides a microenvironment for embryo growth and serves as protection from external contaminants. However, the oil can also act both as a sink for toxins and as a source of toxins if its manufacture processes do not follow strict quality controls.
It is well known that high levels of peroxides in oils may cause a detrimental effect on fertilization and embryo development. Bacterial endotoxins can also inhibit blastocysts formation and have been linked to decreased pregnancy rates.
Washing the oil with ultra-pure water helps to reduce its toxicity by eliminating these contaminants and strongly increasing blastocyst developmental rates. Furthermore, washing and saturating the oils with ultra-pure water avoids critical components of the media getting absorbed into the oil and this affecting the concentration of the media.
Kitazato Hypure® Oils undergo stringent quality controls for sterility, peroxide value, endotoxins and MEA testing. Kitazato Hypure® Oil Heavy is washed during its manufacture process and Kitazato Hypure® Oil Light is double washed to ensure oxidation products are not present within our product and the endotoxin levels are kept under < 0.1 EU/ml before batch release to market. In addition, Kitazato Hypure® Oils are subjected to a double MEA test to guarantee successful growth of more than 80% of mice blastocysts after 120 hours in culture.
Kitazato is committed to provide you with top-quality products to give you the best choice for your patients and enhance your clinical outcomes in your daily reproductive practice.
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