Table 1. Effects of 20 µg/ml crocin supplementation during in vitro culture on the rate of cleavage arrest and blastocyst formation of four-cell mouse embryos.
Intact 4-Cell Embryos p-value Half-Destroyed Embryos p-value
Control
(n=100)
Crocin
(n=100)
Control
(n=150)
Crocin
(n=150)
Cleavage arrest* 7 (7.0%) 6 (6.0%) 0.774 45 (30.0%) 22 (14.7%) 0.001
Good-quality Blastocyst formation 86 (86.0%) 89 (89.0%) 0.521 56 (37.3%) 77 (51.3%) 0.015

* Cleavage arrest observed at 24 hours
Good-quality blastocyst is defined as full + expanding + hatching/hatched blastocyst at 72 hours of culture
Chi-square tests.