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This study was designed to evaluate the potential inhibitory effects of glucose (5.56 mM vs. 0 mM) and/or phosphate (potassium phosphate, 1.19 mM vs. 0 mM) on the in vitro devel-opment of rat 8-cell embryos (n=345 embryos from 36 mature rats). Evaluation of embryos at 48 h for developmental stage (STG) indicated that 37% (31/84), 70% (64/91), 69% (59/85), and 77% (67/85) developed to the blastocyst stage in media with glucose+phosphate, glucose only, phosphate only, and no glucose or phosphate, respectively. Embryo development (2.90{pm}0.097 for STG) in medium with glucose + phosphate was significantly reduced (P<0.001), while no significant differences were observed between all other media (3.4~3.5{pm}0.093-0.097 for STG). Evaluation of embryos for final cell number (FCN) indicated that the greatest number of cells (nuclei) resulted in medium with glucose alone (29.3{pm}0.97 cells, P<0.001). No significant differences were observed for FCN for the remaining three media (l7.5{pm}1, 04 cells, 18.6{pm}1.Ol cells, and 19.8{pm}1.01 cells for glucose+phosphate, phosphate only, and no glucose or phosphate, respectively). Our results suggest that glucose and phosphate together exert an inhibitory effect on 8-cell rat embryo development, while glucose alone was beneficial, yielding greater numbers of cells per embryo.
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