Granulosa cells are crucial for follicular growth, development, and follicular atresia. X-box binding protein 1 (XBP1), a basic region-leucine zipper protein, is widely involved in cell differentiation, proliferation, apoptosis, cellular stress response, and other signaling pathways. In this study, RNA interference, flow cytometry, western blot, real-time PCR, Cell Counting Kit (CCK8), and ELIS...

Follicular fluid is an important environment for oocyte development, yet current knowledge regarding its in vivo oxidant and antioxidant levels remains limited. Examining follicular fluid oxidants and antioxidants will improve understanding of their changes in vivo and contribute to optimisation of in vitro maturation conditions. The aim of the present study was to consider selected markers, na...

In the mammalian ovary, great interest in the expression and function of the bone morphogenetic protein (BMP) family has been recently generated from evidence of their critical role in determining folliculogenesis and female fertility. Despite extensive work, there is a need to understand the cellular sites of expression of these important regulatory molecules, and how their gene expression cha...

Ovarian stimulation is usually carried out with exogenous gonadotropins to induce multiple follicle development and to mature more oocytes for in vitro Fertilization (IVF) [1]. According to the traditional folliculogenesis, antral follicles in each ovary are recruited from the late luteal phase of the preceding menstrual cycle for the following follicle phase. The dominant follicle is selected ...

This paper discusses the phenomenon of nutritional flushing in ewes whereby increased nutrition stimulates folliculogenesis and ovulation rate. In addition the paper reviews recent findings on the effects of increased levels of nutrition on the blood concentrations of reproductive and metabolic hormones in the ewe and some of the intraovarian changes that take place in response to nutritional s...

Folliculogenesis and luteinization are characterized by irreversible and profound physiological and morphological transformation processes, which eventually culminate in the provision of fertilizable eggs and the conversion of the estrogen producing follicle into a progesterone producing corpus luteum. All these processes are preceded by complex alterations of the gene expression profiles in th...

The study of ovarian folliculogenesis has been of great interest to scientists and clinicians in the human and veterinary health fields for more than 20 centuries. Initial studies of the ovarian follicle were based on anatomical descriptions post-mortem, followed by histologic and endocrinologic evaluation of ovarian status. The introduction of high resolution ultrasonography in the 1980s provi...

Inhibins are members of the TGFβ superfamily and act as suppressors of follicle stimulating hormone (FSH) secretion from pituitary glands via a negative feedback mechanism to regulate folliculogenesis. In this study, the INHBB gene was knocked down by three RNAi-Ready pSIREN-RetroQ-ZsGreen vector- mediated recombinant plasmids to explore the effects of INHBB silencing on granulosa cell (GC) cel...

It has been revealed that multiple cohorts of tertiary follicles develop during some animal estrous cycle and the human menstrual cycle. To reach developmental competence, oocytes need the support of somatic cells. During embryogenesis, the primordial germ cells appear, travel to the gonadal rudiments, and form follicles. The female germ cells develop within the somatic cells of the ovary, gran...