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Abstract Objective: To develop a microfluidic chip for embryo dynamic culture method by mimicking the fluid-mechanical and biochemical stimulation embryos experience in vivo from ciliary currents and oviductal contractions. Methods: A microfluidic chip was designed and fabricated for testing the influence of continual fluid flow on embryo development. This gave rise to design of a microfluidics system using microchannels as conduits for fluid flow through a 16- microcellular where embryo resided. Mouse embryos were cultured in conventional microdrop-static control and dynamic conditions with microfluidics, and results obtained from the two methods were compared. Results: Embryonic development situation was the best and the blastocyst rate was the highest (47.9%, 23/48) when fluid velocity of microfluidic culture system was 10 u l per hour. The microfluidic chip dynamic culture method significantly improved the embryo development. The microfluidic dynamic method was superior to the microdrop-static method in terms of 5 to 8 cell embryo rate (53.1% vs. 46.6%), morula rate (50.3% vs. 41.5%) and blastocyst rate (45.5% vs. 35.5%, P all <0.05). There was no significant difference in the rate of 2 to 4 cell-embryo rate between these two methods (63.4% vs. 60.2%, P ＞0.05). Conclusion: The physical environment in the process of embryo culture can affect the quality of embryo. This microfluidic method maybe able to improve embryo development and show an advantage over the conventional method, which would be expected to serve as a powerful tool for embryo culture in the future.
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