Embryo development in dynamic microfluidic systems

Infertility has become a highly-spread disease but the efficiency of standard in vitro fertilization (IVF) cycles is only 30%, and their cost is very high. Recently, strategies based on microfluidics and dynamic in vitro systems have been proposed to improve the throughput of successful assisted hatchings. Here, these novel methods are presented and categorized in three main groups: microdroplet dynamic bioreactors, microchannel based cultures and microcontainers. In contraposition to the conventional static cultures, these devices introduce a dynamic microenvironment in order to mimic the physiological dynamic stimulations that are crucial for embryo development. The critical parameters-such as embryo density, medium flow rate, shear stress and microvibration frequency-are discussed and critically compared among the different systems, highlighting their strengths, drawbacks and potential impact on IVF.