Assisted reproductive technologies (ARTs) represent the best chance for infertile couples to conceive, although increased risks for morbidities exist, including imprinting disorders. This increased risk could arise from ARTs disrupting genomic imprints during gametogenesis or preimplantation. The few studies examining ART effects on genomic imprinting primarily assessed poor quality human embry...

Embryos obtained via superovulation are necessary for mammalian artificial reproduction, and viability is a key determinant of success. Nonfreezing storage at 4 C is possible, but currently used storage solutions can maintain embryo viability for only 24-48 h. Here we found that 10 mg/ml antifreeze protein (AFP) dissolved in culture medium 199 with 20% (v/v) fetal bovine serum and 25 mM HEPES c...

A diazo compound is shown to convert carboxylic acids to esters efficiently in an aqueous environment. The basicity of the diazo compound is critical: low basicity does not lead to a reaction but high basicity leads to hydrolysis. This reactivity extends to carboxylic acid groups in a protein. The ensuing esters are hydrolyzed by human cellular esterases to regenerate protein carboxyl groups. T...

background: recurrent spontaneous abortion impacts almost 1% of couples. the sera from women with unexplained recurrent spontaneous abortion (ursa) have toxic effects on embryos that grow in the uterus. therefore, the abnormal condition of the uterus may also affect sperm qualities. objective: the objectives of this study were to search if these sera could induce dna denaturation in sperm nucle...

Muscle satellite cells (SCs) are stem cells that reside in skeletal muscles and contribute to regeneration upon muscle injury. SCs arise from skeletal muscle progenitors expressing transcription factors Pax3 and/or Pax7 during embryogenesis in mice. However, it is unclear whether these fetal progenitors possess regenerative ability when transplanted in adult muscle. Here we address this questio...

The inner ear contains six distinct sensory organs that each maintains some ability to regenerate hair cells into adulthood. In the postnatal cochlea, there appears to be a relationship between the developmental maturity of a region and its ability to regenerate as postnatal regeneration largely occurs in the apical turn, which is the last region to differentiate and mature during development. ...

The hexose transporter, GLUT2 (SLC2A2), which is expressed by mouse embryos, is important for survival before embryonic day 10.5, but its function in embryos is unknown. GLUT2 can transport the amino sugar glucosamine (GlcN), which could increase substrate for the hexosamine biosynthetic pathway (HBSP) that produces UDP-N-acetylglucosamine for O-linked N-acetylglucosamine modification (O-GlcNAc...