SKY FEUER, RINAUDO LAB

EDITOR'S CHOICE IN DEVELOPMENTAL BIOLOGY

The paper

S.K. Feuer et al., “Sexually dimorphic effect of in vitro fertilization (IVF) on adult mouse fat and liver metabolomes,” Endocrinology, 155:4554-67, 2014.



The background

Embryos formed by in vitro fertilization (IVF) experience very different early conditions from naturally conceived embryos. In previous studies, Paolo Rinaudo of the University of California, San Francisco, and colleagues observed that IVF-conceived female mice were more insulin resistant and metabolized glucose poorly compared to normally conceived females, and that IVF mice of both sexes showed altered gene expression, which led them to wonder what might cause such lasting metabolic and transcriptional changes.



The experiments

Rinaudo’s team transferred IVF-conceived and normally conceived blastocysts into recipient mice. Two months later, when the animals were young adults, the researchers examined...