Fructose metabolism from zygote to blastocyst stage development during culture in vitro
Dynamic changes of energic metabolism occur in mammalian embryonic development from zygote to blastocyst stage.Pyruvate and lactate play an important role in early cleavage stage for ATP production,and glucose may play a key role for blastocyst development after zygote genome activation.Although the early cleavage development is inhibited by glucose,the late blastocyst formation is required for existing glucose in the culture medium in vitro.It has been reported that the role of glucose in the culture medium can be replaced by fructose.In animal studies,it also has been reported that the blastocyst formation rate is increased by fructose supplementation in the culture medium,and further indicated that combined use of glucose and fructose in the culture medium as energic sources not only increases the blastocyst formation rate but also improves the quality of blastocyst and reduces the cell apoptosis.Those results indicated that there is synergic function of glucose and fructose in the culture medium during embryonic development.In this review,we will discuss the possibility of fructose metabolic routes from the development of zygote to blastocyst stage and explain the functional role of fructose in the culture medium.