Recruitment of primordial follicles is essential for female fertility; however, the exact mechanisms regulating this process are largely unknown. Earlier studies using anti-Müllerian hormone (AMH)-deficient mice suggested that AMH is involved in the regulation of primordial follicle recruitment. We tested this hypothesis in a neonatal ovary culture system, in which ovaries from 2-d-old C57Bl/6J...

Physiologically, only a few primordial follicles are activated to enter the growing follicle pool each wave. Recent studies in knock-out mice show that early follicular activation depends on signaling from the tuberous sclerosis complex, the mammalian target of rapamycin complex 1 (mTORC1), phosphatase and tensin homolog deleted on chromosome 10, and phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase (PI3K) pathway...

BACKGROUND Cryopreservation and transplantation of ovarian tissue is one option for re-establishing ovarian function, but optimal conditions for graft sustainment and follicular survival are still considered experimental. The present study aims to analyze the effect of FSH treatment on the resting follicle pool in fresh and cryopreserved primate ovarian tissues following xenografting. METHODS...

Anti-Müllerian hormone (AMH) plays an important role in folliculogenesis. AMH null mice display an increased recruitment of primordial follicles. Nevertheless, these mice do not have proportionally more preovulatory follicles. Therefore, AMH null mice provide an interesting genetic model to study the regulation of species-specific number of preovulatory follicles. We studied the follicle pool t...

Interactions between germ cells and surrounding somatic cells are central to ovarian development as well as later function. Disruption of these interactions arising from abnormalities in either cell type can lead to premature ovarian failure (POF). The forkhead transcription factor FOXL2 is a candidate POF factor, and mutations in the FOXL2 gene are associated with syndromic and non-syndromic o...

The signals that regulate activation, a key transition in ovarian follicular development, are still not well understood, especially in nonrodent species. To gain insight into the regulation of this transition in cattle, we combined a microarray approach with an in vitro system in which ovarian cortical pieces cultured in control medium are enriched for primordial follicles, whereas pieces cultu...