Human female reproductive tract development rests mostly upon hematoxilyn and eosin stained sections despite recent advances on molecular mechanisms in mouse studies. We report application of immunohistochemical methods to explore the ontogeny of epithelial and mesenchymal differentiation markers (keratins, homobox proteins, steroid receptors), transcription factors and signaling molecules (TP6...

Reactive oxygen species (ROS) are involved in physiological functions and act as mediators in various signaling processes. Elevated or sustained generation of free radicals and non radical species derived from free radicals can lead to an imbalance in the intracellular redox homeostasis. Normally, any excess levels of reactive radical and nonradical species generated are intercepted by antioxid...

The metalloproteinase-like, disintegrin-like, cysteine-rich (MDC) family is a large group of sequence-related proteins, first characterized in the male reproductive tract, but subsequently also identified in non-reproductive tissues. Their primary translation products are of approximately 90 kDa and each can be divided into distinct domains which show remarkable homology to reprolysins; snake v...

The potential application of in vitro embryo production (IVP) technologies partially depends on the development of reliable, repeatable and efficient techniques for recovery of oocytes from genetically valuable animals. While oocyte collection from living animals has been widely used in the bovine species, its exploitation in sheep has been limited (Galli et al., 2001). Most work reported in sh...

BACKGROUND Rapid innate immune defences against infection involve the recognition of invading pathogens by specific pattern recognition receptors recently attributed to the family of Toll-like receptors (TLR). Little is known about the in vivo protein expression or distribution of TLR in the female reproductive tract in humans. It is likely that TLR distribution in the female reproductive tract...

Background: Male infertility refers to the inability of a male to achieve a pregnancy in a fertile female. The root of many causes of infertility is miscommunication between immune and reproductive system. Male reproductive system is very sensitive and vulnerable, infections can hinder maturation and movement of spermatozoa lead to impaired fertility.All species need an immediate reply to the m...

AIMS The purpose of this study was to investigate the prevalence of Salmonella in pigs at the moment of slaughter and in the slaughterhouse environment. METHODS AND RESULTS In total, five different commercial slaughterhouses were sampled during eight slaughterhouse visits. Carcass swabs, colon content and mesenteric lymph nodes were taken to reflect the animal status and from the slaughterhou...

Congenital and acquired abnormalities of the reproductive tract of female sheep resulting in subfertility,infertility or sterility cannot easily be detected by routine clinical examination. Morphopathologicalabnormalities of the reproductive tract of ewes were studied by examining a total of 739 genital tracts inabattoirs of Fars province, Iran. From these, the 648 non-pregnant genitalia were e...

The objective of this study was to review the literature on sperm transport in the mare. During this process the sperm cells must reach the oviducts in order to fertilize the oocyte, but before reaching this site it must go through the uterus that is a hostile environment at this moment since there is an inflammatory reaction in this location that aims to eliminate excess spermatozoa and bacter...