We start a new week and a new stage of the Miniseries solving the mystery that we left open in the previous chapter.
What happens when the quality of the seminal sample is not good and we cannot fertilize the eggs using conventional In Vitro Fertilization (IVF)?
In those cases where we do not have a sufficient number of sperm and/or if they do not move well, we perform FERTILIZATION by INTRACYTOPLASMIC SPERM INJECTION or “ICSI”.
Injection? Surely that typical image of assisted reproduction has come to your minds, where you see a needle placed intro an egg, am I wrong? Well, you guessed right, but let’s go step by step to see how we get there…
As within the conventional fertilization technique, we start having the sample with the selected sperm and the clusters obtained after puncture.
First of all, for this technique we need to “undress” the egg (remember that it was a kind of “fried egg”, chapter 3). In other words, the first thing we do is to remove the follicular and granular cells that surround the central part, where the egg itself is located, which is our interest now.
At this time, with the “naked” egg, we can assess its state of maturity. Only those mature eggs will be capable of being fertilized. And now, yes, we can start microinjection itself.
But for this we must first prepare the “playing field”. We begin by placing a few drops of medium on a plate and placing an egg into each of them. On the other hand, we will put another drop of a different medium, where we will place a small amount of the selected sperm. Remember that these sperm are the fastest and most skilled, so this new medium contains a substance that make them move slower and thus ease the “sperm hunting”. The entire ICSI process is carried out by using a powerful microscope and very fine needles that allow us to control every movement with high precision.
And the game begins !! First, we dive with one needle into the drop where the sperm are. When we select one, we tap it lightly to stop its movement (we do not want that it destroys the inside of the egg while moving its tail). Now, we already have the sperm into the needle, so the next step is to go into one of the drops where the egg waits. With the help of another needle we place and fix it so that it does not move, and at that moment we puncture it in order introduce the sperm inside it (injection)
This technique involves an extra push to promote the meeting between the egg and the sperm, but the aim is the same as within the conventional IVF technique, to achieve the fertilization of the largest number of eggs.
Please, leave your comments or questions at info@centromedicomanzanera.com or by filling the contact form that you can find in our website https://www.centromedicomanzanera.com/en/formulario_en/
Have a nice day !
María Pombar Gómez
Embryologist
IMAGE: taken from Vector Stock
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