Automated detection and recognition of oocyte toxicity by fusion of latent and observable features

Abstract

Oocyte quality is essential for successful pregnancy, yet no discriminant criterion exists to assess the effects of environmental pollutants on oocyte abnormalities. We developed a stepwise framework integrating deep learning-extracted latent features with observable human-concept features focused on toxicity detection, subtype and strength classification. Based on 2126 murine oocyte images, this method achieves performance surpassing human capabilities with ROC-AUC of 0.9087 for toxicity detection, 0.7956–0.9034 for subtype classification with Perfluorohexanesulfonic Acid(PFHxS) achieving highest score of 0.9034 and 0.6434–0.9062 for toxicity strength classification with PFHxS achieving highest score of 0.9062. Notably, Ablation studies confirmed feature fusion improved performance by 18.7–23.4 % over single-domain models, highlighting their complementary relationship. Personalized heatmaps and feature importance revealed biomarker regions such as polar body and cortical areas aligning with clinical knowledge. AI-driven oocyte selection predicts embryo competence under pollutants, bridging computational toxicology to mitigate infertility.