Meiotic maturation of oocytes requires a variety of ATP-dependent reactions, such as germinal vesicle breakdown, spindle formation, and rearrangement of plasma membrane structure, which is required for fertilization. Mitochondria are accordingly expected be localized to subcellular sites of energy utilization. Although microtubule-dependent cellular traffic for mitochondria has been studied ext...

Mammalian oocytes synthesize and secrete a zona pellucida that surrounds the growing oocytes, ovulated eggs and preimplantation embryos. The extracellular zona matrix is composed of three glycoproteins (ZP1, ZP2, ZP3) that are involved in folliculogenesis, species-specific fertilization, and passage of the early embryo down the oviduct. We have established a mouse line in which Zp3 has been ina...

Objectives: It was aimed to investigate the effects of different doses of follicle stimulating hormone (FSH) and activin A on the growth and maturation of preantral mouse follicles during the in vitro culture. Methods: Preantral follicles (90-100 µm in diameter) were harvested from 6-8 week-old Syrian mice and cultured in TCM199 culture medium for 6 days to see the effect of FSH and Activin A...

BACKGROUND Mater and Padi6 are maternal effect genes that are first expressed during oocyte growth and are required for embryonic development beyond the two-cell stage in the mouse. We have recently found that PADI6 localizes to, and is required for the formation of, abundant fibrillar Triton X-100 (Triton) insoluble structures termed the oocyte cytoplasmic lattices (CPLs). Given their similar ...

BACKGROUND To better understand the differences between in vivo (IVO) and in vitro (IVM) matured oocytes, we studied the chronological changes in cortical granule (CG) distribution and nuclear progression during maturation, and the competence of CG release and embryo development of mouse oocytes matured under different conditions. METHODS Oocytes matured in vivo or in different culture media ...

The Drosophila gene ald encodes the fly ortholog of mps1, a conserved kinetochore-associated protein kinase required for the meiotic and mitotic spindle assembly checkpoints. Using live imaging, we demonstrate that oocytes lacking Ald/Mps1 (hereafter referred to as Ald) protein enter anaphase I immediately upon completing spindle formation, in a fashion that does not allow sufficient time for n...

Previous work has demonstrated that the Xenopus protooncogene mosxe can induce the maturation of prophase-arrested Xenopus oocytes. Recently, we showed that mosxe can transform murine NIH3T3 fibroblasts, although it exhibited only 1-2% of the transforming activity of the v-mos oncogene. In this study we have investigated the ability of the v-mos protein to substitute for the mosxe protein in st...

The Drosophila gene ald encodes the fly ortholog of mps1, a conserved kinetochore-associated protein kinase required for the meiotic and mitotic spindle assembly checkpoints. Using live imaging, we demonstrate that oocytes lacking Ald/Mps1 (hereafter referred to as Ald) protein enter anaphase I immediately upon completing spindle formation, in a fashion that does not allow sufficient time for n...