Scientists attach barcodes to mouse embryos – human ones coming soon
By Ben Coxworth
16:19 November 22, 2010
Translation by Autumnson Blog
Spanish scientists have attached silicon barcode labels to embryos and oocytes西班牙科學家已附加矽條碼去標籤胚胎和卵母細胞
Fans of the film Blade Runner may remember a scene in which the maker of an artificial snake is identified by a microscopic serial number on one of its scales. Well, in a rare case of present-day technology actually surpassing that predicted in a movie, we’ve now gone one better – bar codes on embryos. Scientists from Spain’s Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB), along with colleagues from the Spanish National Research Council, have successfully developed an identification system in which mouse embryos and oocytes (egg cells) are physically tagged with microscopic silicon bar code labels. They expect to try it out on human embryos and oocytes soon.
電影銀翼殺手的粉絲可能還記得一個場景，其中一位人造蛇的製造者被一個在它的刻度上的微觀序列號碼辨識。那麼，在當今科技非常罕見的個案，實際上超越了電影所預測的，我們現在已在一方走得更好 - 胚胎上的條形碼。從西班牙巴塞羅那自治大學（UAB）的科學家們，一起與從西班牙國家研究理事會的同事，已成功地開發一種識別系統，其中小鼠胚胎和卵母細胞（卵子細胞）都實質地被標記以微觀矽條碼標籤，他們預期很快會對人類胚胎和卵母細胞嘗試。
The purpose of the system is to streamline in vitro fertilization and embryo transfer procedures. If egg cells and embryos can be quickly and easily identified, then things should run much smoother, and success rates should be higher.
系統的目的是精簡體外受精和胚胎移植部驟，如果卵子和胚胎可快速地和容易地被識別，那麼事情應該運行得更順暢，和成功率應該是更高。
The labels, which had been declared biologically innocuous in an earlier study, are microinjected into the perivitelline space of mouse embryos – the perivitelline space is a region between the cell membrane and the zona pellucida, which is a cover that surrounds the embryo’s plasma membrane. The embryo exits the zona pellucida before entering the uterus, so the bar code would be shed at that point.
In the UAB lab studies, labeled embryos were shown to develop normally up until the blastocyst stage, which precedes implantation. The researchers also studied how well the labels stayed on throughout the development cycle, how easily they could be read with a standard microscope, how they could be eliminated after the shedding of the zona pellucida, and how well they could stand up to the freezing and thawing of their host embryo.
There were some problems with embryos being able to free themselves from the labels when they shed the zona pellucida. The scientists are therefore now looking at modifying the surface of the labels, so they could be mounted on the outside of the covering, instead of being injected into the perivitelline space. They are also working on an automated bar code reading system.
Permission has been given by the Government of Catalonia’s Department of Health for UAB to begin testing its system with human oocytes and embryos from several fertility clinics in Spain.
The research was recently published in the journal Human Reproduction.
http://www.gizmag.com/barcodes-on-embryos/17017/
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