A fatty acid profiling method using liquid chromatography-high resolution mass spectrometry for improvement of assisted reproductive technology

Background: Liquid chromatography-high resolution mass spectrometry (LC-HRMS) can be useful to improve in vitro fertilization (IVF). This study aims to find out an association between embryonic growth and embryonic uptake of free fatty acid (FFA) from culture media by using LC-HRMS. Methods: Embryos (n = 55) from 15 couples undergoing IVF were studied. An embryo was cultivated for up to 6 days in a 20 mu l-medium drop under mineral oil, and classified by a morphological grading system into the good-growth group (n = 32; good quality blastocysts) and the poor-growth group (n = 23; non-blastocysts). The control study was set up without embryo. Extracted ion chromatogram of FFAs was collected in negative ion mode for each medium sample obtained after use. Results: The percent change from control to sample in mass area for docosahexaenoic acid showed a decrease in the good-growth group than that in the poor-growth group (p < 0.05). Decrease in %change of docosahexaenoic acid might indicate proper embryonic growth. Similar but insignificant change was observed for other essential FFA5, but not for non-essential FFA5. Conclusion: The proposed metabolomic approach using LC-HRMS might be a powerful tool for non-invasive evaluation of embryonic growth. (C) 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.