Improving human embryos selection in IVF: non-invasive metabolomic and chemometric approach

Abstract

We present here a new metabolomic methodology to predict embryo implantation ability in in vitro fertilization (IVF). In the present study we have included a total of 23 patients scheduled for IVF. Embryos were selected to be transferred by using morphological criteria on day 3 of in vitro culture. The relative amino acid concentrations in the embryo culture media were analyzed by HPLC–MS and HPLC–MS/MS. 1H NMR metabolomic profiles were also obtained for the embryo culture media. Chemometric models were performed with SIMCA (soft independent modeling of class analogy) for samples from both, non-pregnancy and pregnancy cycles. The metabolic differences between the embryos, with pregnancy and non-pregnancy outcome, can be correlated with the relative amino acid concentrations and with 1H NMR profiles. We used interval partial least square (iPLS) in order to identify the higher correlation between regions in the 1H NMR spectra and the embryo implantation capability. The 1H NMR regions with higher correlation are between 1.2 and 0.5 ppm, that included the signals for cholesterol backbone –C(18)H3, –CH3 and CH2 groups of triglycerides, cholesterol compounds and phospholipids. Our results can allow building a quick, non invasive, useful and feasible chemometric models in order to identify embryos with a high pregnancy rate and embryos unable to achieve successful pregnancies.