We’ve all heard the phrase “sparks fly” when you fall in love and it feels like an unexplainable connection has occurred. Researchers have found that this terminology is actually accurate when it comes to an egg being fertilized.
The molecular firework display that occurs shortly after fertilization was captured and measured using imaging and mapping techniques by a team of researchers, which was described in Nature Chemistry. What’s actually happening is billions of zinc atoms are released from the eggs surface, described as “sparks” and they are required for the egg-to-embryo transition. Ideally, understanding the process could change the way we approach in vitro fertilization.
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“The amount of zinc released by an egg could be a great marker for identifying a high-quality fertilized egg, something we can’t do now,” study author Teresa Woodruff said in a news release. “If we can identify the best eggs, fewer embryos would need to be transferred during fertility treatments.”
For the study, researchers from Northwestern University developed a new fluorescent sensor that enabled them to track the movement of zinc atoms in live cells. Using sensitive imaging techniques, the scientists revealed the presence of some 8,000 packages, or vesicles, in the egg—each one jam packed with around a million zinc atoms.
The researchers were able to gather fine details of the event using high-energy X-ray imaging, which allowed them to map the bursts of zinc atoms in both 2D and 3D. This revealed that, rather than all of the pouches releasing their contents at the same time, the sparks came in intermittent waves, with around two thousand vesicles dumping their load simultaneously before a short stretch of silence.
“Each egg has four or five of these periodic sparks,” study author Thomas O’Halloran said in a news release. “It is beautiful to see, orchestrated much like a symphony. We knew zinc was released by the egg in huge amounts, but we had no idea how the egg did this.”
The initiation of embryo formation requires zinc, and this further understanding of the amount and the length of the process could make a huge difference in the future science of the in vitro process.
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[Photo from flickr user Wellcome Images]
