Experiments were performed to determine the actions of recombinant bovine interleukin-1beta (IL-1beta) on the growth of preimplantation embryos. In the first series of studies, IL-1beta was added at 8-10 h after insemination, and the percentage of oocytes developing to the blastocyst stage was evaluated. IL-1beta increased development to the blastocyst stage when embryos were cultured at high d...

Background: Oocyte in vitro maturation success rate is still low in compareision to oocyte in vivo maturation. Thus prediction and improvement of oocyte competency are two critical issues in assisted reproductive technology. New insights into oocyte-cumulus cell regulatory loop may assist our optimization of in vitro maturation technique. Maturation and developmental competency of cumulus oocyt...

background & objectives : different energy substrates and nutrients can greatly influence oocyte nuclear and cytoplasmic maturation. effect of glucose on in-vitro oocyte maturation and subsequent early embryonic development is controversial. the objective of the present study was to verify the effect of various concentrations of glucose on cumulus-oocyte complexes maturation, fertilization and ...

background: vitrification has proven to be more effective than slow freezing methods to cryopreserve mammalian oocytes. the objectives of this study were to evaluate the effects of vitrification on immature and in vitro matured, denuded and cumulus compact goat oocytes and their subsequent fertilization. methods: oocytes were either cryopreserved as immature cumulus compact (imcc) (n=98 exp 1; ...

Spermatozoa have to swim through the oviduct and the cumulus oophorus before fertilization in vivo. In the oviduct, spermatozoa are exposed to glycodelin-A and -F that inhibit spermatozoa-zona pellucida binding. In this study, we determined whether these glycodelins would inhibit fertilization. The data showed that the spermatozoa without previous exposure to glycodelin-A and -F acquired glycod...

We have developed an assay that can detect relative changes in the amount of a non-cAMP inhibitor of maturation present in cumulus cells (Eppig et al., 1983, Dev. Biol., 100:39-49). Using this assay in which accelerated maturation of a group of treated cumulus cell-oocyte complexes relative to untreated complexes indicates a decrease in the amount of inhibitor, results of the experiments descri...

background:   objective: this study was designed to examine the effects of hp on in-vitro maturation of oocytes and cell death in cumulus cells derived from vitrified-warmed mouse ovaries.   materials and methods: preovulatory follicles were harvested from non-vitrified and vitrified-warmed 6-8 week-old female nmri mouse ovaries and randomly assigned to following groups: non-vitrified (control)...

A glycosylphosphatidylinositol (GPI)-anchored hyaluronidase, PH-20, on the sperm surface has long been believed to assist sperm penetration through the cumulus mass surrounding the eggs. However, mouse sperm lacking PH-20 were still capable of penetrating the cumulus mass despite a delayed dispersal of cumulus cells. Intriguingly, a 55-kDa hyaluronan-hydrolyzing protein was abundantly present i...

BACKGROUND A biochemical marker for embryo development would increase the chance of a successful pregnancy with IVF by optimizing oocyte and embryo selection, and allow fewer embryos to be transferred. In this study, we correlated cumulus granulosa cell gene expression of hyaluronic acid synthase 2 (HAS2), cyclooxygenase 2 (COX2; PTGS2) and gremlin (GREM1) with subsequent embryo development in ...