human ovarian tissue vitrification/warming has minor effect on the expression of apoptosis-related genes

background: in this study, we evaluated the incidence of apoptosis at the ultrastructural levels and expression of some apoptosis-related genes in vitrified human ovarian tissue just after warming. methods: human ovarian tissue biopsies from 23 women after caesarean section were transported to the laboratory within 2 hours, and then they were cut into small pieces. some pieces were vitrified and warmed and the other samples were considered as control. apoptosis was assessed by a transmission electron microscope and also by molecular analysis of pro-apoptotic (fas, fasl, bax, p53, caspase8, and caspase3) and antiapoptotic (bcl-2 and birc5) genem rna levels using real-time rt-pcr before and after vitrification. results: no sign of apoptosis was shown ultrastructurally in vitrified samples. the level of fasl, bcl-2, bax, p53, and caspase3 mrna and bax:bcl-2 ratio were similar in non-vitrified and vitrified groups however, the expression of fas and caspase8 genes was higher and birc5 was lower in vitrified samples compared to non-vitrified group (p<0.05). conclusion: the fine structure of human vitrified ovarian tissue was well preserved moreover, vitrification was shown to affect the expression of some apoptosis-related genes. however, additional study is needed to confirm this observation.