Dynamic revelation of early development in mouse embryo via Raman spectroscopy.
Non-invasive embryo quality assessment techniques in clinical practice remain in early developmental phase, highlighting the critical need to expand technical methods and improve evaluation accuracy.This study applies Raman spectroscopy to characterize glucose and lipid metabolic profiles during the early development of mouse embryos, aiming to explore the possibility of both as biomarkers for non-invasive assessment of embryo quality. Through semi-quantitative analysis, this research demonstrate that the average glucose metabolism remains relatively stable from Day 0 to 3 post conception (D0-3), followed by a significant increase in consumption around D3, and robust metabolic activity during D4-D5. The study also confirms the pivotal role of glucose metabolism in facilitating blastocyst formation. Additionally, Raman imaging was employed to visualize distribution of structural components and the dynamic lipid metabolism changes across 1-cell, 2-cell, and 4-cell stages, providing novel insights into quantitative lipidomic analysis of early embryos.