Changes in sex ratio from fertilization to birth in assisted-reproductive-treatment cycles

By J. Tarín, M. García-Pérez, C. Hermenegildo, A. Cano. 2014

64 citations recorded by the source corpus.

BackgroundIn Western gender-neutral countries, the sex ratio at birth is estimated to be approximately 1.06. This ratio is lower than the estimated sex ratio at fertilization which ranges from 1.07 to 1.70 depending on the figures of sex ratio at birth and differential embryo/fetal mortality rates taken into account to perform these estimations. Likewise, little is known about the sex ratio at implantation in natural and assisted-reproduction-treatment (ART) cycles. In this bioessay, we aim to estimate the sex ratio at fertilization and implantation using data from embryos generated by standard in-vitro fertilization (IVF) or intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI) in preimplantation genetic diagnosis cycles. Thereafter, we compare sex ratios at implantation and birth in cleavage- and blastocyst-stage-transfer cycles to propose molecular mechanisms accounting for differences in post-implantation male and female mortality and thereby variations in sex ratios at birth in ART cycles.MethodsA literature review based on publications up to December 2013 identified by PubMed database searches.ResultsSex ratio at both fertilization and implantation is estimated to be between 1.29 and 1.50 in IVF cycles and 1.07 in ICSI cycles. Compared with the estimated sex ratio at implantation, sex ratio at birth is lower in IVF cycles (1.03 after cleavage-stage transfer and 1.25 after blastocyst-stage transfer) but similar and close to unity in ICSI cycles (0.95 after cleavage-stage transfer and 1.04 after blastocyst-stage transfer).ConclusionsIn-vitro-culture-induced precocious X-chromosome inactivation together with ICSI-induced decrease in number of trophectoderm cells in female blastocysts may account for preferential female mortality at early post-implantation stages and thereby variations in sex ratios at birth in ART cycles.

Subfields: Gender Studies, Pediatrics, Perinatology and Child Health

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Citations in the corpus

Ethical Implementation of Artificial Intelligence to Select Embryos in In Vitro Fertilization (2021, background): “For example, there are reported differences between early morphokinetic profiles between male and female embryos [42, 43, 44, 45] (and other traits might be similarly differentially represented at this early stage).”