OBJECTIVE To evaluate the effects of freezing, thawing, and autograft of a hemi-ovary on steroid secretion, endometrial maturation, and ovarian histology in ewes. DESIGN Experimental animal study. SETTING Laboratoire de Zootechnie, Ecole Nationale Vétérinaire, Marcy l'Etoile, France. ANIMAL(S) Six lambs aged 6 months to 1 year old. INTERVENTION(S) Hemi-ovaries were prepared and frozen f...

BACKGROUND A decline in fertility is evident in human females past their middle thirties. This 'reproductive senescence', marked by a sharp decline in pregnancy rates, may be attributed to reductions in numbers of available oocytes and their quality. Because Old World primates exhibit ovarian morphology and physiological control and timing of menstrual cycles closely resembling those of humans,...

background: the mammalian ovary is controlled by a number of biological rhythms, which regulate the recruitment and release of mature oocytes. the main objective of this study was to investigate the role of cellular clock proteins during follicle maturation in the mouse estrous ovary. methods: immunohistochemical (ihc) studies were performed on ovaries from 50 estrous staged mice culled at two ...

OBJECTIVE To evaluate and compare the distribution and density of primordial follicles within a whole sheep ovary and to gain insight into how to overcome the impact of natural follicular heterogeneity on the experimental results. DESIGN Histological study. SETTING Academic research center. ANIMALS Five- to nine-month-old ewes. INTERVENTIONS Freshly sampled whole sheep ovaries were coll...

Neurotrophins are growth factors that are known to have a role in promoting cell survival and differentiation. The focus of the current study is to examine the role of neurotrophins in regulating ovarian primordial follicle development. Ovaries from 4-day old rats were placed into organ culture and cultured for 10 days in the absence or presence of neurotrophin-3 (NT3), brain-derived neurotroph...

An ovarian follicle is composed of an oocyte and surrounding theca and granulosa cells. Oocytes are stored in an arrested state within primordial follicles until they are signaled to re-initiate development by undergoing primordial-to-primary follicle transition. Previous gene bionetwork analyses of primordial follicle development identified a number of critical cytokine signaling pathways and ...

OBJECTIVE The purpose of this experimental rat model study is to evaluate the changes in the ovarian environment after excision of the rudimentary horn. METHODS Ten female Wistar albino rats were used in this study. One cm of right uterine horn length was excised in the first operation. Two months after the first operation, all animals were sacrificed to obtain ovaries for histological examin...

In-vitro maturation (IVM) of human ovarian follicles and oocytes could benefit infertile women, and allow the development of in-vitro systems for the study of human follicular development. Little is known about the initiation of growth of primordial follicles and the regulation of early folliculogenesis. An ovarian tissue-slice culture system was used to examine the effects of media composition...