Mammalian females enter puberty with follicular reserves that exceed the number needed for ovulation during a single lifetime. Follicular depletion occurs throughout reproductive life and ends in menopause, or reproductive senescence, when the follicle pool is exhausted. The mechanisms regulating the production of a species-specific initial follicle pool are not well understood. However, the es...

In a sexually mature female, primordial follicles continuously leave the arrested pool and undergo the primordial to primary follicle transition. The oocytes increase in size and the surrounding squamous pre-granulosa cells become cuboidal and proliferate to form a layer of cuboidal cells around the growing oocyte. This development of the primordial follicle commits the follicle to undergo the ...

Thyroidectomy surgery performed late in gestation results in perturbations in wool follicle development in foetal sheep, showing the importance of thyroid hormones for wool follicle development. The aim of this study was to determine the influence of transient manipulation of thyroid hormone status at a time corresponding with foetal primary wool follicle initiation. Pregnant Merino ewes (n = 1...

BACKGROUND We have previously shown that suspension culture prevents follicle flattening and maintains three-dimensional follicle architecture better than culture on flat plates. However, many of the follicles cultured in suspension do eventually rupture, as basement membrane integrity is lost and the three-dimensional structure of the follicle is altered. Therefore, the objective of this study...

The current study was designed to investigate the actions of Anti-Müllerian Hormone (AMH) on primordial follicle assembly. Ovarian primordial follicles develop from the breakdown of oocyte nests during fetal development for the human and immediately after birth in rodents. AMH was found to inhibit primordial follicle assembly and decrease the initial primordial follicle pool size in a rat ovari...

Purpose: To examine osteoblastic genes expression of freshly isolated human dental follicle cells during osteogenic differentiation in vitro using cDNA microarrays. Materials and Methods: The dental follicle cells isolated from dental follicle were cultured in DMEM media with 10 mol/L Dex for 4 weeks, the control without Dex. Total RNA was extracted from the cultured follicle cells with Trizol....

The forkhead transcription factor FOXE1 is mutated in patients with Bamforth-Lazarus syndrome that exhibit hair follicle defects, suggesting a possible role for Foxe1 in hair follicle morphogenesis. Here, we report that Foxe1 is specifically expressed in the lower undifferentiated compartment of the hair follicle, at a time and site that parallel activation of the Shh signaling pathway. The Fox...

The Drosophila melanogaster ovarian follicle cell lineage provides a powerful system for investigating how epigenetic changes contribute to differentiation. Downstream from an epithelial stem cell, follicle progenitors undergo nine mitotic cell cycles before transitioning to the endocycle and initiating differentiation. During their proliferative phase, follicle progenitors experience Lsd1-depe...

Two critical processes in ovarian biology are the assembly of the primordial follicles early in development and then the subsequent development and transition of the primordial follicle to the primary follicle. These processes directly effect the number of oocytes available to a female throughout her reproductive life. Once the pool of primordial follicles is depleted a series of physiological ...

The forkhead transcription factor FOXE1 is mutated in patients with Bamforth–Lazarus syndrome that exhibit hair follicle defects, suggesting a possible role for Foxe1 in hair follicle morphogenesis. Here, we report that Foxe1 is specifically expressed in the lower undifferentiated compartment of the hair follicle, at a time and site that parallel activation of the Shh signaling pathway. The Fox...