Mosaic human preimplantation embryos and their developmental potential in a prospective, non-selection clinical trial

Abstract

Chromosome imbalance (aneuploidy) is the major cause of pregnancy loss and congenital disorders in humans. Analyses of small biopsies from human embryos suggest that aneuploidy commonly originates during early divisions, resulting in mosaicism. However, the developmental potential of mosaic embryos remains unclear. We followed the distribution of aneuploid chromosomes across 73 unselected preimplantation embryos and 365 biopsies, sampled from four multifocal trophectoderm (TE) samples and the inner cell mass (ICM). When mosaicism impacted fewer than 50% of cells in one TE biopsy (low-medium mosaicism), only 1% of aneuploidies affected other portions of the embryo. A double-blinded prospective non-selection trial (NCT03673592) showed equivalent live-birth rates and miscarriage rates across 484 euploid, 282 low-grade mosaic, and 131 medium-grade mosaic embryos. No instances of mosaicism or uniparental disomy were detected in the ensuing pregnancies or newborns, and obstetrical and neonatal outcomes were similar between the study groups. Thus, low-medium mosaicism in the trophectoderm mostly arises after TE and ICM differentiation, and such embryos have equivalent developmental potential as fully euploid ones.

Conflict of interest statement

Declaration of interests A.C., M.P., L.G., C.P., M.F., M.F., J.C., and C.R. are full-time employees of Igenomix. L.R. is the Scientific Director of GeneraLife IVF. She is editor of reproductive biomedicine online and has been associate editor of human reproduction update. She has been the principal investigator of a study sponsored by Merck KGaA. She has received honoraria and consultation fees from Merck, MSD, Ferring, Ibsa, Cooper Surgical, Cook, Nterilizer, Fujifilm-Irvine Scientific, Medea, and Universal Clinics. She is a partner and shareholder of Global Investment Clinics, Genera Health Care, and Nterilizer and has been affiliated with Flam. D.C. is a full-time employee of GeneraLife IVF, where he is the science and research manager. He received paid lectures from Fujifilm-Irvine Scientific. He received paid consultations from Merck. F.B. reports personal fees from Fujifilm-Irvine Scientific, outside the submitted work. A.V. reports personal fees from Gedeon Richter, personal fees from Merck, and personal fees from MSD, outside the submitted work. E.H. and I.V. are supported by an ERC consolidator grant (724718-ReCAP), the Novo Nordisk Foundation Young Investigator Award (NNF15OC0016662), ReproUnion, and the Danish National Research Foundation (center grant 6110-00344B). The views expressed in this article are those of the authors and not necessarily those of the sponsors. The funders of the study had no role in study design, data collection, data analysis, data interpretation, or writing of this article. The corresponding authors had full access to all the data in the study and had final responsibility for the decision to submit for publication. E.H. is the executive board member and chair of the scientific advisory board of ReproUnion, which is co-funded by Ferring Pharmaceuticals. F.M.U. is the scientific director of GeneraLife IVF. He is the president of the Italian Society of Fertility and Sterility (SIFES). He has been the principal investigator of a study sponsored by Merck and by S&R Farmaceutici. He has received honoraria and consultation fees from Merck, Merck Sharp and Dohnme Corporation, Ferring, Institut Biochimique, Cooper Surgical, Cook, Nterilizer, Fujifilm-Irvine Scientific, Medea, and Universal Clinics. He is partner/shareholder of Global Investment Clinics, Genera Health Care, and Nterilizer, and has been of Flam. C.S. is the head of the scientific advisory board of Igenomix. The other authors declare no competing interests.

Copyright © 2021 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Figures

Figure 1

Aneuploidy incidence in clinical trophectoderm biopsies and embryonic concordance study (A) The pie chart represents the distribution of aneuploidy categories observed in 6,766 clinical trophectoderm (TE) biopsies analyzed in our PGT-A diagnostic setting (classified according to the most severe abnormality across all chromosomes). The stacked bar chart represents the incidence of each aneuploidy category at the chromosome level. (B) Top left: 73 human blastocysts were disaggregated into five portions: four TE biopsies and the inner cell mass (ICM ) biopsy. Top right: examples of PGT-A plots displaying a low mosaic configuration confined to TE1 and a uniform aneuploidy detected in all portions. Bottom: this heatmap shows diagnostic concordance rates per chromosome on the basis of 73 embryos with five biopsies each (365 embryo biopsies), leading to 6,424 comparisons (73 embryos × 22 autosomal chromosomes × 4 permutations of reference biopsy). One of the four TE biopsies is considered as a reference, whereas the remaining biopsies (three TE + ICM) are used for verifying the outcome of the reference. Based on its copy-number result, each autosomal chromosome within the reference biopsy is classified into one of five categories (euploid, low-grade mosaic [20–30%], medium-grade mosaic [30–50%], high-grade mosaic [50–70%], or aneuploid; rows), whereas the verification biopsies are classified in two categories (normal [50%]). The heatmap shows concordance rates between the reference TE and the three verification TE biopsies (columns), given the outcome of the reference (rows). This analysis is split into two maps depending on whether the ICM is normal (left) or abnormal (right). For instance, the cell in the first column, second row, indicates that if a chromosome is detected at a low-grade mosaic configuration in the reference TE biopsy, there is a 99.3% probability that a normal diagnostic outcome is detected in all four other verification biopsies. The risk of chromosomal abnormalities in the four remaining embryonic portions is rare and similar when the reference biopsy shows a euploid, low-grade mosaic, or medium-grade mosaic outcome.

Figure 2

Study flow chart

Figure 3

Euploid biparental inheritance in children born from “mosaic” embryo transfer (A) Illustration of a mosaic paternal monosomy inferred from the trophectoderm biopsy. The fetal tissues derive from the inner cell mass, which might contain biparental or uniparental chromosomes or a mixture of them. Supporting SNPs where the maternal and paternal genotypes are homozygous but carry opposite alleles (AA and BB or vice versa) can be used for determining the presence or absence of parental chromosomes. (B) LogR and B allele frequencies for chromosome 6 from a child born from group C. (C) Cumulative AB genotypes in the child of supporting SNPs across chromosome 6. (D) Number (No.) of children investigated with post natal SNPa testing. Total number of samples showing euploid or mosaic karyotype (“ploidy”) or containing both parental chromosomes (biparental disomy, BPD) or two homologous chromosomes from the same parent (UPD).