Background: The efficiency of in vitro maturation (IVM) has remained low despite extensive effort to understand the culture conditions. This study investigated the effect of cumulus cells and meiotic inhibitors on oocyte developmental competence in the presence of Alpha Lipoic acid (ALA) Materials and Methods: Mouse germinal vesicle oocytes were considered in cumulus-denuded oocytes (CDOs) and ...

The induction of oocyte maturation is known to involve an initial action of agonists at the oocyte surface. This leads to activation of a cytoplasmic maturation-promoting factor (MPF) which induces the observable events associated with maturation (reviews by Smith and Ecker, 1970; Smith, 1975; Wasserman and Smith, 19786; Baulieu et al. 1978; Masui and Clark, 1979; Mailer and Krebs, 1980; Mailer...

The relationship between virion protein maturation and genomic RNA dimerization of human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) remains incompletely understood. We have constructed HIV-1 Gag cleavage site mutants to enable the steady state observation of virion maturation steps, and precisely study Gag processing, RNA dimerization, virion morphology and infectivity. Within the virion maturation ...

The paper describes comperatively aspects of oogenesis and folliculogenesis, oocyte and follicular growth in cattle and pigs. Moreover, gonadotropin dependent regulatory processes of the wave like pattern of follicular growth are discussed in both species as well as functional and morphological changes during oocyte maturation. Finally, time dependent processes after oecurrence of spontaneous o...

The probability that a fish matures at a certain age and length (the so-called probabilistic maturation reaction norm, PMRN) was analysed for a European whitefish Coregonus lavaretus species complex population living in the Austrian pre-alpine Lake Irrsee. Fish length was found to be the only relevant determinant of maturation probability, and females matured at slightly smaller sizes than males.

The evolution of intrinsic growth rate has received less attention than other life history traits, and has been studied differently in plants, homoiotherms, and poikilotherms. The benefits of rapid growth are obvious, so the problems is to explain the costs and tradeoffs that cause organisms to grow below their physiological maximum. Four prevailing themes emerge from the literature: (1) slow g...

This paper considers the length–weight relationship of six out of eight most commonly found fish species inhabiting the Vardar River biotope, the largest riverine system in the central part of the Balkan Peninsula: Alburnoides bipunctatus (Bloch, 1782); Alburnus alburnus (Linnaeus, 1758), Barbus macedonicus Karaman, 1928; Barbus peloponnesius Valenciennes, 1842; Chondrostoma vardarense Karaman,...

Phagocytosis and phagosome maturation are crucial processes in biology. Phagocytosis and the subsequent digestion of phagocytosed particles occur across a huge diversity of eukaryotes and can be achieved by many different cells within one organism. In parallel, diverse groups of pathogens have evolved mechanisms to avoid killing by phagocytic cells. The present review discusses a key innate imm...

this study was inducted to elucidate the effect of different steroid hormones on simultaneous maturation of oocytes in caspian salmon. oocytes were incubated with 1, 10, 100 and 1000 ng/ml of testosterone, progesterone and 17 β stradiol, in vitro, for 40 hrs. gvbd was considered as hormones effectiveness. 17β estradiol was effective just in 1000 ng/ml and testosterone had no positive effect on ...