Three organomercurials, p-hydroxymercuribenzoate, p-hydroxymercuriphenylsulfonate, and mersalyl, induce maturation (meiosis) in a large percentage (20-100 percent) of Xenopus laevis oocytes. Maturation takes place even when the follicle cells which surround the oocytes have been withdrawn. Organomercurial- and progesterone-induced maturations have many features in common: they do not occur when...

The success of early embryonic development depends on oocyte nuclear and cytoplasmic maturation. We have investigated whether glial cell line-derived neurotrophic factor (GDNF) affects the in vitro maturation (IVM) of porcine oocytes and their subsequent ability to sustain preimplantation embryo development. GDNF and both its coreceptors, GDNF family receptor alpha-1 (GFR alpha-1) and the rearr...

In the present paper comparative study of morpho-histology of ovaries of both WT (HdrR) and P53 (-/-) of medaka (Oryzias latipes) has been done. The ovaries of adult are paired and oval-rounded in shape and are situated ventrolaterally. Histologically the ovaries consist of follicles with various stages of development, such as primodial follicle, large follicle and growing follicle. Also, the o...

A growing body of evidence suggests that the interleukin-1 system is involved in periovulatory events. Previous work from our lab demonstrated that in the mare, interleukin-1beta (IL-1beta) increases the ovulatory rate of metaphase II oocytes. The present study was conducted to analyze in vivo the effect of IL-1 on oocyte cytoplasmic maturation, ovulation and pregnancy rate. In the present work...

The proportion of transferable beef embryos obtained after superovulation, follicle aspiration, and in vitro maturation and fertilization has been small. To seek possible explanations, cows on different planes of nutrition were treated with exogenous gonadotropin and oocytes were isolated from their ovaries. The record for each oocyte included characteristics of the follicle, ovary, and cow fro...

The ovarian follicle is the functional unit of the ovary that secretes sex hormones and supports oocyte maturation. In vitro follicle techniques provide a tool to model follicle development in order to investigate basic biology, and are further being developed as a technique to preserve fertility in the clinic. Our in vitro culture system employs hydrogels in order to mimic the native ovarian e...

Follicle development can be divided into gonadotrophin-independent, gonadotrophin-responsive and gonadotrophin-dependent phases. The basic level of control of folliculogenesis lies with the actions of an extensively observed but poorly understood range of somatic and germ cell derived local factors that constitute an intrafollicular developmental cascade that regulates the proliferative and dif...

Though much has been learned about the process of ovarian follicle maturation through studies of oogenesis in both vertebrate and invertebrate systems, less is known about how follicles form initially. In Drosophila, two somatic follicle stem cells (FSCs) in each ovariole give rise to all polar cells, stalk cells, and main body cells needed to form each follicle. We show that one daughter from ...

Sea cucumbers saponins are triterpenoid glycosides which exert beneficial biomedical effects. This study was performed to assess the effect of saponin extracted from sea cucumber Holothuria leucospilota (H. leucospilota) on maturation of mice oocytes and granulosa cells. The germinal vesicles oocytes were collected from 6-8 weeks old Naval Medical Research Institute (NMRI) mice ovaries, randoml...

The distribution of binding sites for human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG) in the preovulatory follicle was studied by autoradiography. An ovulatory dose (10 IU/rat) of [125I]hCG (1.4 muCi/IU) was administered intravenously, and large Graafian follicles were isolated 3 h later by microdissection. Injection of excess unlabeled hCG (500 IU/rat) prevented uptake of radioactivity by the follicle, ind...