Fig. 2.

Blastocyst forming and hatching capacity of ageing PB oocytes. Cumulus oocyte complexes (COCs) of eCG primed mice collected at 12, 16 and 24 h post hCG injection were in vitro fertilized and grown to blastocyst. The % (Mean ± SEM) of blastocysts formed and blastocysts hatched of three biological replicates are depicted. For blastocyst forming capacity the time points marked with different letters were statistically different after two-tailed ANOVA and Tukey post test (P < 0.0001). Hatching capacity was comparable in the three conditions. Based on the differences in developmental capacity the 12 and 16 h CC samples are further referred to as “Optimal PB CC” and the 24 h CC samples are further called “Aged PB CC”