I-16: Assessment of The Vitrified Ovarian Tissue in Long Term Culture

In vitro culture of human ovarian tissue the following cryopreservation is proposed for follicular development. There are no techniques that guarantee successful maturation of the follicles within the excised tissue. The viability of cultured human ovarian tissue improved by adding some growth factors to the culture media. The efficiency of vitrification as the cryopreservation method for human ovarian tissue has been supported by several studies. It is the ultimate cellular response to suboptimal conditions and different kinds of stress that cells and tissues might encounter during their cooling and warming steps. Apoptosis may be initiated by cryopreservation due to physical alteration and during in vitro culture of ovarian tissue. Thus, for the first time the effect of LIF on the human ovarian tissue follicular development and incidence of apoptosis using several complementary techniques were assessed and apoptosis related genes expression at the mRNA levels by real time RT-PCR in long term culture of human ovarian tissue were analyzed. Our results showed LIF could improve the survival and development of the in vitro cultured follicles in vitrified and non-vitrified human ovarian tissue by decreasing apoptosis and expression of pro-apoptotic genes.