Effects of coculture with uterine epithelial cells on the metabolism of glucose by mouse morulae and early blastocysts.

Coculture of mouse morulae/early blastocysts with isolated endometrial epithelial cells reduced incorporation of glucose carbon into embryonic glycogen but had no significant effect on incorporation into other internal carbon pools during a 5-h culture in serum-supplemented Dulbecco's modification of Eagle's minimum essential medium. Turnover of glycogen pools during 24-h chase culture of pulse-labelled embryos was unaffected by the presence of uterine epithelial cells recovered from day-4 pregnant or non-pregnant mice. However, significantly more label was retained in non-glycogen macromolecules during chase in the presence of endometrium recovered from non-pregnant than from pregnant uteri.