Research Paper Volume 13, Issue 11 pp 14829—14842

Figure 7. Quality and quantity of mouse blastocysts retrieved after Samul-tang (SM) administration. Forty-week-old mice were orally administered distilled water (n = 13, OC group) or 2.5 g/kg of SM (n =13, OC+SM group) five times a week for four weeks. Post SM administration, the mice were superovulated via hormonal stimulation and mated with fertile males. At 1.5 days post coitum (dpc), 2-cell embryos were collected and cultured up to blastocyst stage for three days. (A) Blastocyst quality was evaluated by assessing the stained nuclei and DNA fragmentation in blastocysts from each mice group. Number of collected 2-cell embryos at 1.5 dpc (B) and cultured blastocysts at 4.5 dpc (C). (D–F) Blastocyst developmental competence was assessed from the number of blastomeres and apoptotic nuclei, and apoptotic index. Data are presented as mean ± standard error of the mean. Statistical analysis was performed using the Student’s t-test.