Objectives: The current study aimed to investigate the in vitro effects of physiologic concentration of adiponectin in follicular fluid of pre-ovulatory bovine ovarian follicles on: 1) the bovine oocyte maturation and the early developmental rates of bovine embryos in vitro; 2) the expression profiles of some developmentally important marker genes in the bovine cumulus cells and oocytes. Materi...

The tumour suppressor gene silencing and proto-oncogene activation caused by epigenetic alterations plays an important role in the initiation and progression of cancer. Re-establishing the balance between the expression of tumour suppressor genes and proto-oncogenes by epigenetic modulation is a promising strategy for cancer treatment. In this study, we investigated whether cancer cells can be ...

Characterization of the Involvement of Integrins, Focal Adhesion Kinase, and Phospholipase C Enzymes Endogenous to the Oocyte in Bovine Fertilization and Oocyte Activation

BACKGROUND The oocyte-to-embryo transition (OET) requires a co-ordinated transcriptional programme acting through evolutionarily conserved events, and transcription factors (TFs) are known to control these processes. Here, we focus on nuclear factor (NF)-κB, a TF involved in several cellular processes, studying NFκB-inhibitor (NFKBIA) mRNA and its protein product, IκBα, during OET. NFKBIA and I...

We analyzed the expression of mRNAs for growth factor [epidermal growth factor (EGF), insulin-like growth factor-I (IGF-I), basic fibroblast growth factor (bFGF) and platelet-derived growth factor A chain (PDGF-A)] and their receptor (R) by reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction in bovine ova during oocyte maturation in vitro (0-21 hr) and after fertilization in vitro (6-144 hr: zygote...

Background: This study was conducted in order to determine whether BCB staining performed on immature bovine oocytes to assess G6pdhlevel has an impact on ivf/ivp technology in bovine embryos. Both spermatozoa and oocytes metabolize glucose through the pentose phosphate pathway (PPP), and NADPH appears necessary for gamete fusion. Activity of glucose 6-phosphate dehydrogenase (G6PDH), the key e...

Background: There is a considerable numbers of buffalo (Bubalus bubalis) in Iran which have an important role in rural life. The reproductive performance of buffalo is lower than cow. Co-culture with somatice cells improved the maturation rate of most of the species. The aim of the present study was to evaluate the effect of bovine cumulus co-culture on post fertilization development of buffalo...

Ovariectomy and ovarian tissue cryopreservation has the potential to preserve the natural fertility of cancer patients prior to sterilizing chemo- and radiotherapies. Ovarian tissue cryopreservation with the conventional slow-freezing method has yielded limited success, partly because of oocyte loss during freeze-thaw and subsequent transplant. Based on the high-efficiency vitrification Cryotop...

Pluripotent human amniotic fluid cells (HuAFCs) can differentiate into various types of somatic cell in vitro. However, their differentiation into oocyte-like cells has never been described to the best of our knowledge. In the present study, differentiation of E-cadherin+ and E-cadherin- HuAFC sub-populations into oocyte-like cells was induced via culture in medium containing bovine follicular ...