A Hosseini - Department of Anatomy, Faculty of Medicine, Iran University of Medical Science, Tehran, Iran
B Movaghar - Department of Embryology, Reproductive Biomedicine Research Center, Royan Institute for Reproductive Biomedicine, ACECR, Tehran, Iran
M Bakhtiyari - Department of Anatomy, Faculty of Medicine, Iran University of Medical Science, Tehran, Iran
N Ghorbanmehr - Department of Biotechnology, Faculty of Biological Sciences, Alzahra University, Tehran, Iran

Background: Leukemia Inhibitory Factor, LIF, and integrins play an essential role in the interaction of trophoblast with en-dometrial cells in the implantation process. It has been deter-mined that LIF regulates the expression of endometrial αvβ3 In-tegrin, but its role in αvβ3 expression on trophoblast cells is still unclear. Blockage of LIF has a negative effect on the implanta-tion of mouse embryos. The aim of this study was to evaluate the effect of LIF on development of 8-cell mouse embryos into blastocyst stage and also expression of αvβ3 integrin, Bax, and Bcl-2 genes in resulted blastocysts.Materials and Methods: The 8-cell mouse embryos were ob-tained from superovulated NMRI mice. The collected embryos were divided into four groups and cultured for 72 hours as fol-lows: group (1): LIF free simple embryo culture; group (2): simple embryo culture with 1000 U/ml LIF; group (3): embryo co-culture with Ishikawa cells without LIF; group (4): embryo co-culture with Ishikawa cells with 1000 U/ml LIF. Embryo development was recorded every day and Cell counting was performed on the obtained blastocysts. As well expression of αvβ3, Bax, and Bcl-2 genes were evaluated in blastocysts of each group using real-time PCR.Results: The results showed that the percentage of embryos that reached the blastocyst stage, number of cells, embryo sur-vival rates and expression of αvβ3 integrin gene were signifi-cantly higher in the co-culture groups and simple culture with LIF group than LIF free simple culture group.Conclusion: According to our findings, it seems that LIF canimprove the growth, number of cells and survival of the em-bryos and Increases the gene expression of αvβ3 integrin in single blastocysts which has an important role in the success of implantation. The current results may provide a new approach to increase the implantation rate in infertile women.

LIF, Embryo Implantation, αvβ3 Integrin, Blastocyst, Trophoblast