Efficient breeding system of infertile Niemann-Pick disease type C model mice by in vitro fertilization and embryo transfer.

Niemann-Pick disease type C (NPC) is a lethal genetic disease with mutations in or gene. -deficient () mice have been used as a model for NPC pathogenesis to develop novel therapies for NPC. However, mice are infertile; thus, securing sufficient numbers for translational research is difficult.

Synchronization of the ovulation and copulation timings increased the number of in vivo fertilized oocytes in superovulated female mice.

The number of sperm that reaches the oocytes in mammalian species is limited. In mice, 8-10 oocytes are ovulated, a similar number of sperm reaches the oocytes, and nearly all oocytes are fertilized via natural mating. Meanwhile, our improved superovulation technique (ultrasuperovulation: administration of inhibin antiserum and equine chorionic gonadotropin [IASe]) produced 100 oocytes from a single female C57BL/6 mouse but resulted in only approximately 20 fertilized oocytes via mating.

Dimethyl-α-cyclodextrin induces capacitation by removing phospholipids from the plasma membrane of mouse sperm†.

Capacitation is an important event in the completion of fertilization by mammalian sperm. Cholesterol efflux is a trigger of capacitation. In general, cholesterol acceptors of albumin and β-cyclodextrins are used to induce capacitation during in vitro fertilization.