Background: Setting up an in vitro follicle culture system that resembles in vivo ovary condition has high value in research. Additionally, expression evaluation of folliculogenesis involved genes could lead us to the designing of better culture system. Materials and Methods: ovaries of 12-day-old female NMRI mice were removed, 100-130 μm pre-antral follicles were mechanically isolated from fre...

Enkephalins play a major role in reproductive physiology in crustaceans; however their role in reproductive development in insects is largely unknown. We investigated the effect of exposure to exogenous leucine-enkephalin (Leu-Enk), methionine-enkephalin (Met-Enk), and the opioid antagonist naloxone on gonad development in the Eastern lubber grasshopper, Romalea microptera. Injection of either ...

Background: Polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) is a multifactorial, heterogeneous, complex genetic endocrine and metabolic disorder, diagnostically characterized by chronic anovulation, polycystic ovaries and biochemical and clinical manifestations of hyperandrogenism. In patients with PCOS lower apoptotic rates found in granulosa cells compared to women with regular ovulatory cycles and this lea...

Let G be a simple graph with non-negative edge weights. Determining a minimum weight spanning tree is a fundamental problem that arises in network design and as a subproblem in many combinatorial optimization problems such as vehicle routing. In some applications, it is necessary to restrict the diameter of the spanning tree and thus one is interested in the problem : Find, in a given weighted ...

From cosets of binary Hamming codes we construct diameter perfect constantweight ternary codes with weight n − 1 (where n is the code length) and distances 3 and 5. The class of distance 5 codes has parameters unknown before.

 In 2007 and 2008, the influence of pollen source on the shell and kernel traits of resulting seeds and on fruit set was examined to evaluate the potential for Xenia or Metaxenia in Persian walnut. Pistillate flowers of ‘Jamal’, ‘Chandler’, ‘Hartley’ and ‘Pedro’ were crossed with the pollen of ‘Serr’, ‘Z60’ and ‘Damavand’. The pistillate flowers on each female parent were covered about one week...

Background: The seeds of some medicinal plants and their compounds have long been valued for their numerous health benefits. Objective:To investigate some physical and chemical properties of Salvia spp. Methods: Some physico-chemical properties in five species of Salvia seeds (consisted of S. officinalis L., S. macrosiphon L., S. hypoleuca L., S. sclarea L. and S. nemorosa L.) were measured ...

In the Xenopus oocyte heterologous expression system, the electrophysiological characteristics of rabbit ClC-2 current and its contribution to volume regulation were examined. Expressed currents on oocytes were recorded with a two-electrode voltage-clamp technique. Oocyte volume was assessed by taking pictures of oocytes with a magnification of ×40. Rabbit ClC-2 currents exhibited inward rectif...