Macroscopic, phenomenological models are useful as concise framings of our understandings in fields from statistical physics to finance to biology. Constructing a phenomenological model for development would provide a framework for understanding the complicated, regulatory nature of oogenesis and embryogenesis. Here, we use a data-driven approach to infer quantitative, precise models of human oocyte maturation and pre-implantation embryo development, by analysing clinical in-vitro fertilization (IVF) data on 7399 IVF cycles resulting in 57 827 embryos. Surprisingly, we find that both oocyte maturation and early embryo development are quantitatively described by simple models with minimal interactions. This simplicity suggests that oogenesis and embryogenesis are composed of modular processes that are relatively siloed from one another. In particular, our analysis provides strong evidence that (i) pre-antral follicles produce anti-Müllerian hormone independently of effects from other follicles, (ii) oocytes mature to metaphase-II independently of the woman’s age, her BMI and other factors, (iii) early embryo development is memoryless for the variables assessed here, in that the probability of an embryo transitioning from its current developmental stage to the next is independent of its previous stage. Our results both provide insight into the fundamentals of oogenesis and embryogenesis and have implications for the clinical IVF.

宏观的现象学模型可以作为我们对统计物理学、金融学和生物学等领域理解的简明框架。构建发育的现象学模型将为理解卵子发生和胚胎发生的复杂性、调节性提供一个框架。在这里，我们使用数据驱动的方法通过体外分析临床体外推断人类卵母细胞成熟和植入前胚胎发育的定量、精确模型7399 个 IVF 周期的受精（IVF）数据产生了 57827 个胚胎。令人惊讶的是，我们发现卵母细胞成熟和早期胚胎发育都可以通过具有最小相互作用的简单模型进行定量描述。这种简单性表明，卵子发生和胚胎发生是由彼此相对孤立的模块化过程组成的。特别是，我们的分析提供了强有力的证据，表明（i）窦前卵泡产生抗苗勒管激素，独立于其他卵泡的影响，（ii）卵母细胞成熟到中期 II，与女性的年龄、BMI 和其他因素无关，（ iii) 早期胚胎发育对于此处评估的变量是无记忆的，因为胚胎从当前发育阶段过渡到下一个发育阶段的概率与其前一阶段无关。