While genetic and epigenetic factors have been associated with the developmental competence of human oocytes and embryos produced by IVF, how such factors develop or influence the oocyte remain to be explained. This paper reviews evidence which suggests that the degree of perifollicular vascular expansion associated with increased rates of blood flow are developmentally important for the genera...

BACKGROUND Children with pragmatic language impairment (PLI) show impairments in the use of language in social contexts. Although the issue has been gaining attention in recent literature, not much is known about the developmental trajectories of children who experience pragmatic language problems. Since narrative competence is an important predictor of both academic and social success, evaluat...

Far more has been written about the possible outcomes of cross-age mentoring than about actual outcomes and the processes that lead to change. This study examined the effect of mentors’ attendance on their mentees’ outcomes after six months of developmental mentoring. Developmental mentoring is a structured, cross-age peer mentoring program designed to promote children’s development by facilita...

Ontogenetic phases separating growth from reproduction are a common feature of cellular life. Long recognized for flowering plants and animals, early literature suggests this life-history component may also be prevalent among multicellular fungi. We establish the basis of developmental competence-the capacity to respond to induction of asexual development-in the filamentous saprotroph Aspergill...

DEVELOPMENTAL FATE DECISIONS IN CELL POPULATIONS FUNDAMENTALLY DEPEND ON AT LEAST TWO PARAMETERS: a signal that is perceived by the cell and the intrinsic ability of the cell to respond to the signal. The same regulatory logic holds for phase transitions in the life cycle of an organism, for example the switch to reproductive development in flowering plants. Here we have tested the response of ...

Sphingosine 1-phosphate (S1P) is a sphingolipid metabolite that can block apoptosis by counteracting the proapoptotic effects of ceramide. Experiments were performed to evaluate whether S1P blocks the disruption in oocyte developmental competence caused by heat shock. Cumulus-oocyte complexes (COCs) were placed in maturation medium and cultured at 38.5 or 41 degrees C for the first 12 h of matu...

The efficiency of cloning by somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT) has remained low. In most cloned embryos, epigenetic reprogramming is incomplete, and usually the genome is hypermethylated. The DNA methylation inhibitor 5-aza-2'-deoxycytidine (5-aza-dC) could improve the developmental competence of cow, pig, cat and human SCNT embryos in previous studies. However, the parameters of 5-aza-dC tr...

STUDY QUESTION Does exposure to lysophosphatidic acid (LPA) during in vitro maturation (IVM) enhance the maturation and developmental competence of mouse oocytes? SUMMARY ANSWER Supplementation of IVM medium with 30 μM LPA enhanced the developmental competence of in vitro matured oocytes and so made them more comparable to in vivo matured control oocytes. WHAT IS KNOWN ALREADY LPA is a smal...

the aim of this study was to investigate the in vitro developmental competence of isolated pre-antral follicles derived from vitrified ovaries in the presence of coenzyme q 10 (coq 10 ) . mice pre-antral follicles derived from fresh and vitrified-warmed ovarian tissues were in vitro cultured individually in α-mem medium supplemented with or without coq 10 , followed by adding human chorionic go...