BACKGROUND Ovarian follicle development is a complex process. Paracrine interactions between somatic and germ cells are critical for normal follicular development and oocyte maturation. Studies have suggested that the health and function of the granulosa and cumulus cells may be reflective of the health status of the enclosed oocyte. The objective of the present study is to assess, using an in ...

IMPORTANCE Adolescents whose parents have a history of depression are at risk for developing depression and functional impairment. The long-term effects of prevention programs on adolescent depression and functioning are not known. OBJECTIVE To determine whether a cognitive-behavioral prevention (CBP) program reduced the incidence of depressive episodes, increased depression-free days, and im...

In order to achieve developmental competence, porcine oocytes must undergo both nuclear and cytoplasmic maturation. Nuclear maturation results from breakdown of the germinal vesicle (GV) and progression of meiosis to metaphase II (MII). Cytoplasmic maturation is the accumulation, within the oocyte’s cytoplasm, of products necessary for fertilization, cleavage and development, prior to activatio...

Developmental competence of female gametes determines their maturation ability, successful fertilisation, and proper zygote formation. Oocyte quality may be assessed by expression profiling of several gene markers such as Cx43, TGFB, GDF9, BMP, Lox and Pdia5 that determine the biological features of oocytes. Conversely, several other extrinsic factors, including follicular size or heat shock ma...

At the end of the growth phase, mouse antral follicle oocytes acquire full developmental competence. In the mouse, this event is marked by the transition from the so-called non-surrounded nucleolus (NSN) chromatin configuration into the transcriptionally quiescent surrounded nucleolus (SN) configuration, which is named after a prominent perinucleolar condensed chromatin ring. However, the SN ch...

background: previous studies reported many discrepancies about the effects of corpus luteum (cl) and ovarian follicle size on the developmental competence of oocytes. objective: the aim of this study was to investigate the effects of cl and different size of follicle on the developmental potential of bovine oocytes. materials and methods: after ovarian classification based on presence or absenc...

background: in vitro maturation (ivm) of immature oocytes collected from ovary has been proposed for fertility preservation. in addition, quality of oocytes post ivm is one of the factors determining its developmental competence. by using the non-invasive polscope system, both meiotic spindle (ms) and zona pellucida (zp) can be assessed in living oocytes. objective: the aim was to investigate t...

Early development in humans is characterised by low and variable embryonic viability, reflected in low fecundity and high rates of miscarriage, relative to other mammals. Data from assisted reproduction programmes provides additional evidence that this is largely mediated at the level of embryonic competence and is highly heterogeneous among embryos. Understanding the basis of this heterogeneit...

Our aim was to improve the developmental competence of bovine oocytes during their liquid storage by using additives. In vitro matured oocytes were stored for 20 h at 25°C in HEPES buffered TCM 199 medium (base medium). After storage, in vitro embryo development after in vitro fertilization was compared to those of non-stored (control) ones. Addition of 10% (v/v) newborn calf serum or 10.27 mmo...

BACKGROUND The low developmental competence of embryos from ageing females remains an enigma; it is presumably attributable to oxidative stress. A number of antioxidant mechanisms exist in the erythrocyte and these have been investigated in other cells and tissues. However, very few studies have reported the effects of erythrocyte supplementation on developmental competence in ageing embryos. ...