In vitro embryo production is the cornerstone of infertility treatment in human and is increasingly used in cattle to propagate high genetic merit animals. To increase its efficiency, many different approaches have been tested all of which stem from the concepts of oocyte quality and developmental competence. Presented here are recently reported findings and perspectives related to bovine oocyt...

Oocyte development is characterized by impressive changes in chromatin structure and function in the germinal vesicle (GV), which are crucial to confer the oocyte with meiotic and developmental competences. During oogenesis, oocyte and follicular cells communicate by paracrine and junctional mechanisms. In cow, cumulus enclosed oocytes (CEOs) isolated from early antral follicles have uncondense...

Examination of factors regulating oocyte chromatin remodeling is crucial to circumvent embryonic aneuploidy and resulting defects. Aurora kinases (AURK) are involved in regulation of chromatin remodeling, however, little attention has been paid to AURKs in regard to oocyte maturation. Meiotically incompetent mouse oocytes contain transcripts for all three Aurk isoforms: A, B and C. Upon achievi...

Ubiquitination is a covalent post-translational modification of proteins by the chaperone protein ubiquitin. Upon docking to the 26S proteasome, ubiquitin is released from the substrate protein by deubiquitinating enzymes (DUBs). We hypothesised that specific inhibitors of two closely related oocyte DUBs, namely inhibitors of the ubiquitin C-terminal hydrolases (UCH) UCHL1 (L1 inhibitor) and UC...

Cumulus cells (CC) surround the oocyte and are coupled metabolically through regulation of nutrient intake. CC removal before in vitro maturation (IVM) decreases bovine oocyte developmental competence without affecting nuclear meiotic maturation. The objective was to investigate the influence of CC on oocyte cytoplasmic maturation in relation to energy metabolism. IVM with either cumulus-enclos...

Female reproductive potential is dictated by the size of the primordial follicle pool and the correct regulation of oocyte maturation and activation—events essential for production of viable offspring. Although a substantial body of work underpins our understanding of these processes, the molecular mechanisms of follicular and oocyte development are not fully understood. This review summarizes ...