Table 1. Cortical tension and viscosity in oocytes and embryos.

	Early meiosis I oocyte	Late meiosis I oocyte	Pronucleus stage embryo	Mitotic stage embryo
Cortical tension (nN μm−1)	0.92±0.2 (from ref. 12)	0.034±0.1 (from ref. 12)	0.35±0.04	0.61±0.05
Cytoplasmic viscosity (Pa·s)			4.4 × 102±40	12 × 102±300

For cortical tension in embryos, mean of 13 Pronucleus stage and 9 mitotic embryos is shown, measured over 8 independent experiments. The statistical significance of differences is assessed with a t-test (P value 0.0011). The values of cortical tension for early and late oocytes are extracted from ref. 12. For cytoplasmic viscosity, mean of 16 Pronucleus stage and 15 mitotic embryos is shown, measured over 6 independent experiments. Statistical significance of differences is assessed with a Mann–Whitney test (P value <0.0001).