Description
Through multiple experiments, this study demonstrated that oxytocin induces diapause, a temporary developmental delay, in pre-implantation mouse embryos to help ensure their survival. To assess whether oxytocin receptor (OXTR) signaling might influence this gestational delay, heterozygous (OXTR+/−) dams which retain sufficient OXTR function for apparently normal parturition and nursing, were bred. After the second breeding, these animals were found to experience a prolonged gestational delay and fewer OXTR knockout (KO) pups were born in litters that experienced diapause. The investigators also observed the effect of temporal patterns of oxytocin release and patterned optogenetic stimulation on the induction of diapause. To examine examining embryonic oxytocin receptor expression in blastocysts, nondiapaused blastocysts were harvested at E3.5 and probed for the presence of OXTRs. In vitro, oxytocin-treated blastocysts were found to exhibit diapause-like delayed implantation. Embryonic survival following ovariectomy-induced diapause was mediated by OXTR signaling; OXTR KO embryos had lower survival rates after diapause induction compared to wild-type embryos.
Subject of Study
Subject Domain
Subject Sex
Female
Keywords

Access

Restrictions
Free to All
Instructions
All data needed to evaluate the conclusions in the paper are present in the paper on PubMed Central (PMC) under Supplementary Materials. The dataset includes source data and statistical analysis for figures in the associated publication.
Access via PMC

Study data
Accession #: PMC11881891

Associated Publications
Data Type
Equipment Used
Femtowatt Silicon Photoreceiver
Nanoject III Programmable Nanoliter Injector
Olympus IX71
Olympus Multiphoton Microscope
RX8 Multi-I/O Processor
Thorlabs LEDD1B
Thorlabs M405FP1
Thorlabs M470F1
Thorlabs SM1NR05
Zeiss Axio Observer
Zeiss Lightsheet Z.1
Zeiss LSM 800
Software Used
Adobe Illustrator
GraphPad Prism
ImageJ
Synapse
Dataset Format(s)
Microsoft Excel
Grant Support
Edward Mallinckrodt Jr. Foundation/Edward Mallinckrodt Jr. Foundation
Barnard College Summer Research Institute/Golden Family Foundation Endowment Fund