O-10: The Effects of Different Transplantation Sites on Follicular Surviving and Apoptosis Incidenceof Intact Whole Rat Ovaries after Autotransplantation

Background: Limited and fixed number of ovarian follicles undergo reducing changes from birth till menopause. In cancerous patients who exposed to sterilizing treatments such as chemotherapy, follicle decrease is faster and dominant. Main fertility preservation technique for these patients is ovarian cryopreservation and transplantation. Reanastomosis between recipient site and invader tissue is the most critical point after transplantation. Also transplantation site showed diverse effects in different animals. In the present study, the effects of four different sites of transplantation were assessed on the morphology of rat ovarian tissue and the incidence of apoptotic in. Materials and Methods: prepubertal female Wistar rats aged ~5 weeks old and weighing 100 - 130 g were used for experiment. Rats were divided to 5 groups: Control (intact), A (back subcutaneous transplanted), B (gluteal subfacia transplanted), C (Gluteal intramuscular transplanted) and D (cervical subcutaneous transplanted) and each group was repeated 10 times. In all experimental groups, right ovary was removed and transplanted into different sites. After 3 weeks, transplanted (right) ovary and the ovary (left) of the opposite site were retrieved (removed) and fixed in Bouin’s. Fixed samples were sectioned serially (1:5). The sections were stained with hematoxylin and eosin for morphology assessment and follicular counting. Also Apoptosis incidence was evaluated by anti and pro active caspase-3 Immunohistochemistry kit. Results: Transplanted ovaries in A and B groups were full of cysts and didn’t have enough intact and developing follicles so these two groups were omitted from the experiment. In C and D groups, reanastomosis, follicular development and good homogeneity of the stromal tissue were seen. Mentioned groups were approximately similar to the control one. Only the difference of the intact antral follicles was significant between D (7.92 ± 0.02%) and OD (opposite ovary of D group) (30.99 ± 0.03%) and also between D (7.92 ± 0.02%) and control (10.08 ± 0.01%) groups. In addition, the number of intact primordial follicles in the OD (16.58 ± 0.02%) group was significantly less than control (40.40 ± 0.03%) group. Interestingly, the number of corpus luteum (Cl) was significantly increased in the OD (11.71 ± 0.01%) and OC (9.16 ± 0.02%) groups as compared to the control and experimental groups. Conclusion: Accordingly, the sites of ovarian tissue transplantation sites in rat indicated different effects on follicular development. It seems that cervical subcutaneous site (D) has more positive effects in comparison to the others even gluteal intramuscular site (C). Although C and D group’s results were close to each other, cervical subcutaneous site is recommended for rat ovarian tissue autotransplantation because its retrieval is easy and less harmful for tissue.