A randomized clinical trial to evaluate the effect of granulocyte-macrophage colony-stimulating factor (GM-CSF) in embryo culture medium for in vitro fertilization

Effects of granulocyte-macrophage colony-stimulating factor supplementation in culture medium on embryo quality and pregnancy outcome of women aged over 35 years

“…Firstly, in Sjöblom's studies [29], the donated embryos had experienced freezingthawing procedure before treatment of GM-CSF. It was shown that the observed benefit of GM-CSF supplementation was only apparent in culture medium containing a low concentration of human serum albumin (2 mg/mL HSA), not when a higher concentration of HSA (5 mg/mL) was used, indicating the possibility that the effect of GM-CSF was to alleviate culture stress induced by suboptimal conditions [19,27]. Thus, cryopreservation exerting extra stress to the embryos might be an affecting factor.…”

“…Among various embryokines, granulocyte-macrophage colony-stimulating factor (GM-CSF) has attracted much attention. GM-CSF is expressed in female genital tract, and as a developmental programming agent, it enhances cell proliferation, embryo progression, blastocyst hatching, and embryo implantation [1,3,[16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23]. Especially, some existing data have indicated a link between decreased GM-CSF levels and reproductive pathologies in women, including miscarriage, intrauterine fetal growth retardation, preeclampsia, and preterm delivery Capsule Although no benefit of GM-CSF on embryo quality was observed, the addition of this factor significantly decreased the occurrence of chemical pregnancy of women aged over 35 years, indicating the role of GM-CSF in improving implantation competence of embryos derived from elderly infertile women.…”

“…However, most of these results are from animal studies [1,3,[16][17][18], and the effect of GM-CSF on human preimplantation embryo, especially the clinical perinatal outcome and offspring health, has yet to be elucidated [20][21][22][23]. Moreover, the present concentration of GM-CSF (2 ng/mL) applied in human researches is chosen mainly based on animal data [19,21,22], which cannot be exactly equal to human oocytes or embryos. Thus, we still need to know more about the precise nature of GM-CSF effect before its routine application in clinical practice for subfertility treatment.…”

Effect of GM-CSF on Porcine Parthenotes Development

“…GM-CSF also been secreted in mice reproductive tract and regulated by ovarian steroid hormones. The expressions of GM-CSF is further induced in early pregnancy by factors in seminal fluid .Researchers also found that GM-CSF play some important roles in embryos development and pregnant in human [5,6]. in vitro conditions for human embryo culture generally considered to be suboptimal, and embryo development is often arrested or delayed [7] However, it remains to be elucidated whether GM-CSF can stimulate pig embryo development in vitro.…”

The Effect of G-CSF on Infertile Women Undergoing IVF Treatment

“…Schjenken et al and Sharkey et al suggested the levels of G-CSF increased during the interaction of seminal fluid and epithelial cells, further contributing to the conception [4,5]. Meanwhile, as for the patients undergoing assisted reproduction treatment, the better clinical pregnancy outcomes could be observed by adding the G-CSF to embryo culture medium in some extent [6]. However, for patients with thin endometrium, the production of G-CSF was influenced by abnormal function of endometrium and the mechanism for affecting the implantation should be further explored.…”