This paper describes a method for obtaining metaphase chromosomes from human second polar bodies. The second polar body nucleus was injected into the cytoplasm of an enucleated oocyte, which is activated shortly after injection. When the polar body nucleus is transformed into a haploid pronucleus, treatment with okadaic acid was used to induce premature chromosome condensation. A total of 25 an...

A single dose of 3/~g/g b.w. colchicine was intraperitoneally injected to female Chinese hamsters with a normal estrous cycle at the onset of the formation of the first meiotic spindle. Morphologically abnormal secondary oocytes having one or two extremely large first polar bodies occurred frequently, i.e., 47 (11.3~) out of 416 oocytes. In 30 of them, chromosome analysis was successful with bo...

Inherited mtDNA diseases transmit maternally and cause severe phenotypes. Currently, there is no effective therapy or genetic screens for these diseases; however, nuclear genome transfer between patients' and healthy eggs to replace mutant mtDNAs holds promises. Considering that a polar body contains few mitochondria and shares the same genomic material as an oocyte, we perform polar body trans...

In the first polar lobe of the egg of Bithynia tentaculata a cup-shaped mass of small vesicles is described, which fills the greater part of the lobe. It is named the 'vegetal body'. With methyl green-pyronin the vegetal body stains clearly, but after treatment with RNase no staining occurs, thus indicating the presence of RNA. The first polar lobe of Bithynia is of great importance for further...

Parthenogenetic embryos are an ethically acceptable alternative for the derivation of human embryonic stem cells. In this work, we propose a new strategy to produce bovine parthenogenetic embryos inhibiting the emission of the first polar body during in vitro maturation, and allowing the extrusion of the second polar body during oocyte activation. Cytochalasin B, an inhibitor of actin microfila...

STUDY QUESTION When a chromosome aneuploidy is detected in the first polar body and a reciprocal loss or gain of the same chromosome is detected in the second polar body, is the resulting embryo usually aneuploid for that chromosome? SUMMARY ANSWER When reciprocal aneuploidy occurs in polar bodies, the resulting embryo is usually normal for that chromosome, indicating that premature separatio...

Background: In this study we evaluate the effects of different doses of GDF9 with fixed dose of BMP15 on quality of in vitro maturated sheep oocytes. Materials and Methods: Good ovine Cumulus-oocyte complexes (COCs) were first transferred to Pre-IVM medium, and then to three IVM mediums supplemented with 10%v/v BMP15 and: 1) 175 ng/ml 2) 131 ng/ml or 3) 219 ng/ml GDF9. After maturation period, ...

Meiotic errors during oocyte maturation are considered the major contributors to embryonic aneuploidy and failures in human IVF treatment. Various technologies have been developed to screen polar bodies, blastomeres and trophectoderm cells for chromosomal aberrations. Array-CGH analysis using bacterial artificial chromosome (BAC) arrays is widely applied for preimplantation genetic diagnosis (P...