Like other mucosal surfaces (e.g., the gastrointestinal tract, the respiratory tract), the human female reproductive tract acts as an initial barrier to foreign antigens. In this role, the epithelial surface and subepithelial immune cells must balance protection against pathogenic insults against harmful inflammatory reactions and acceptance of particular foreign antigens. Two common examples o...

BACKGROUND Understanding the aetiology of subfertility and female reproductive tract disorders at a molecular level may improve success rates in fertility treatment. Such understanding may be gained by the application of metabonomics technologies to tissues or biofluids. Metabonomics is concerned with the quantification of molecules in the metabolome and uses nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) sp...

Chlamydia trachomatis is a major cause of sexually transmitted diseases worldwide. There is currently no vaccine to protect against chlamydial infection of the female reproductive tract. Vaccine development has predominantly utilised the murine model; however, infection of female guinea pigs with Chlamydia caviae more closely resembles chlamydial infection of the human female reproductive tract...

Our understanding of how male seminal fluid proteins (SFPs) influence the outcome of copulation in a wide range of insect taxa has been fueled primarily by studies of Drosophila (1). SFPs are known to localize, after copulation, to specific regions of the female reproductive tract and nervous system. Manipulative studies revealed that these proteins control a number of postcopulatory processes,...

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...

Reports of decreased semen quality and increased rates of developmental abnormalities of the male reproductive tract along with increasing incidence of testicular cancer have focused attention on man-made chemicals as potential causative factors. A biologically plausible hypothesis has been advanced which suggests that man-made chemicals act as endocrine disruptors through interaction with the ...

Cervical cancer is a leading cause of death due to cancer among women worldwide. Using transgenic mice to dissect the contributions of the human papillomavirus (HPV) 16 E6 and E7 oncogenes in cervical cancer, E7 was identified previously to be the dominant oncogene. Specifically, when treated with exogenous estrogen for 6 months, E7 transgenic mice developed cancer throughout the reproductive t...

OBJECTIVE To determine the prevalence of and risk factors for reproductive tract infections among men and women in a rural community in Bangladesh. METHODS In the Matlab area a systematic sample of married non-pregnant women aged 15-50 years was drawn from a comprehensive household registration system for married women. A systematic sample of married and unmarried men in the same age group wa...

To describe proportion and pattern of culling in commercial dairy herds of Khorasan Razavi Province, this survey was carried out from 21st March 2008 to 20th March 2009 in 15 industrialized dairy herds. For each culled cow data related to parity at culling, last calving to culling interval and primary reason for culling were recorded. Annual herd exit rate was 20.9%. Out of a total of 652 culle...

Reproductive abnormalities cause major losses of sheep production. Abattoir materials were used todetermine the extent of reproductive wastage. Reproductive tracts were collected from 524 ewes slaughtered at Urmia slaughter-house in Urmia, northwest of Iran, during a period of 12 months. Overall, 30.10% of the ewes examined were pregnant. A total of 149 (28.44%) tracts developed acquired reprod...