PMID- 35382579 OWN - NLM STAT- MEDLINE DCOM- 20220407 LR - 20230407 IS - 1742-5662 (Electronic) IS - 1742-5689 (Print) IS - 1742-5662 (Linking) VI - 19 IP - 189 DP - 2022 Apr TI - Surface functionalization of poly(dimethylsiloxane) substrates facilitates culture of pre-implantation mouse embryos by blocking non-selective adsorption. PG - 20210929 LID - 10.1098/rsif.2021.0929 [doi] LID - 20210929 AB - Poly(dimethylsiloxane) (PDMS) is widely used in biomedical settings such as microfluidics for its optical transparency, castability, gas permeability and relative biocompatibility. While PDMS devices with certain modifications or treatments have been used for mammalian pre-implantation embryo culture, it is unclear why native PDMS leads to significant embryo death. In this study, we employ Nile Red as a model hydrophobic small molecule to demonstrate that significant hydrophobic sequestration occurs on native PDMS substrates even with a bovine serum albumin-containing KSOM pre-equilibration. Our results suggest that this small molecule sequestration has detrimental effects on mouse embryo development in PDMS static culture wells, with 0% blastocyst development rates from embryos cultured on native PDMS. We found that prior saturation of the PDMS culture well with water vapour only rescues about 10% of blastocyst development rates, indicating osmolality alone is not responsible for the high rates of embryo arrest. We also present a safe and simple Pluronic F127 pretreatment for PDMS substrates that successfully circumvented the harmful effects of native PDMS, achieving a blastocyst and implantation rate akin to that of our polystyrene controls. Our results call into question how researchers and clinicians can account for the alterations in medium composition and embryo secretions when using hydrophobic substrates, especially in the mammalian embryo culture setting where minimum effective concentrations of peptides and amino acids are commonplace. FAU - Hawkins, Jamar AU - Hawkins J AUID- ORCID: 0000-0003-3469-586X AD - Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA 01003, USA. FAU - Miao, Xiaosu AU - Miao X AD - Department of Veterinary and Animal Sciences, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA 01003, USA. FAU - Cui, Wei AU - Cui W AUID- ORCID: 0000-0001-7281-3471 AD - Department of Veterinary and Animal Sciences, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA 01003, USA. AD - Animal Models Core Facility, Institute for Applied Life Sciences (IALS), University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA 01003, USA. FAU - Sun, Yubing AU - Sun Y AD - Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA 01003, USA. AD - Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA 01003, USA. AD - Department of Biomedical Engineering, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA 01003, USA. LA - eng GR - R21 HD098686/HD/NICHD NIH HHS/United States PT - Journal Article PT - Research Support, N.I.H., Extramural PT - Research Support, U.S. Gov't, Non-P.H.S. DEP - 20220406 PL - England TA - J R Soc Interface JT - Journal of the Royal Society, Interface JID - 101217269 RN - 0 (Dimethylpolysiloxanes) RN - 63148-62-9 (baysilon) SB - IM MH - Adsorption MH - Animals MH - *Dimethylpolysiloxanes/chemistry MH - Embryo, Mammalian MH - *Embryonic Development MH - Mammals MH - Mice PMC - PMC8984368 OTO - NOTNLM OT - amino acids OT - assisted reproductive technologies OT - embryo culture OT - non-specific binding OT - polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) OT - polystyrene COIS- The authors have declared that no conflict of interest exists. EDAT- 2022/04/07 06:00 MHDA- 2022/04/08 06:00 PMCR- 2023/04/06 CRDT- 2022/04/06 05:20 PHST- 2022/04/06 05:20 [entrez] PHST- 2022/04/07 06:00 [pubmed] PHST- 2022/04/08 06:00 [medline] PHST- 2023/04/06 00:00 [pmc-release] AID - rsif20210929 [pii] AID - 10.1098/rsif.2021.0929 [doi] PST - ppublish SO - J R Soc Interface. 2022 Apr;19(189):20210929. doi: 10.1098/rsif.2021.0929. Epub 2022 Apr 6.