Figure 8.

Testing the effects of optimised culture conditions on embryo growth rates of hybrid strain and inbred strain embryos. Embryos were collected directly from the reproductive tract during development or zygotes collected and cultured as groups of 10 in 10 μL KSOM media supplemented with amino acids and 37 nM Paf in 5% O₂ tension. The growth rate of each treatment was assessed by recording the number of cells in each embryo at 12 h interval up to 96 h post-hCG, compared to embryos collected directly from reproductive tract at the same times, in which method was designed as Figure 1. At least 60 embryos for each developmental time point were assessed. There was no differences between in vitro and in vivo hybrid strain embryos at any time point, *p < 0.001 shows the differences in growth rate of B6 embryos in vitro compared to those collected from the reproductive tract.