The purpose of this pilot study was to correlate the three biologic markers of the Ovulon fertility monitor (a long-term predictive peak about 6 days before ovulation, a short-term predictive peak about 1 day before ovulation, and a nadir at the time of ovulation) with the peak in cervical mucus and the luteinizing hormone (LH) surge in the urine. Ten volunteer subjects (mean age 30.2 years) mo...

Mucosal epithelia use osmotic gradients for fluid absorption and secretion. We hypothesized that administration of hypotonic solutions would induce fluid uptake that could be advantageous for rapidly delivering drugs through mucus to the vaginal epithelium. We found that hypotonic formulations markedly increased the rate at which small molecule drugs and mucoinert nanoparticles (mucus-penetrati...

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE Fluorescence spectroscopy has been shown to provide information useful in the detection of cervical dysplasia. The goal of this study was to determine if substances found on the cervix such as acetic acid, mucus, and vaginal medications can influence the fluorescence in the spectral region useful for discriminating normal cervical tissue from abnormal tissue. STUDY DE...

BACKGROUND Intercourse results in a pregnancy essentially only if it occurs during the 6-day fertile interval ending on the day of ovulation. The strong association between timing of intercourse within this interval and the probability of conception typically is attributed to limited sperm and egg life times. METHODS A total of 782 women recruited from natural family planning centres in Europ...

While shedding routes of Coxiella burnetii are identified, the characteristics of Coxiella shedding are still widely unknown, especially in dairy cattle. However, this information is crucial to assess the natural course of Coxiella burnetii infection within a herd and then to elaborate strategies to limit the risks of transmission between animals and to humans. The present study aimed at (i) de...

This study investigated the effects of repeated oronasal treatment with lipopolysaccharide (LPS) on the humoral immune responses in saliva, vaginal mucus, and the plasma markers of the acute phase response in periparturient dairy cows. One hundred pregnant Holstein cows were administered either 3 increasing doses of LPS (n = 50) as follows: 1) 0.01 µg/kg body weight (BW) on d -28, 2) 0.05 µg/kg...

The present study aimed to ascertain the influence of crude protein (CP) digestibility in the rumen on the quantity and quality of milk production and reproductive performance, blood (BU) and milk (MU) urea, haematological profile and vaginal mucus urea, ammonia and potassium of buffalo cows. Lactating buffaloes (n = 84), 60 days in milk, were randomly subdivided into Group C (control, n = 42) ...

Motility is the feature that allows spermatozoa to actively reach and penetrate the female gamete during fertilization. When this function is altered, and especially decreased, troubles in conceiving may occur. In this study, we demonstrated that treating fertile women with myo-inositol (MI) vaginal suppositories ameliorated their partners' sperm motility and also positively affected their conc...

The ability of mucus to function as a protective barrier at mucosal surfaces rests on its viscous and elastic properties, which are not well understood at length scales relevant to pathogens and ultrafine environmental particles. Here we report that fresh, undiluted human cervicovaginal mucus (CVM) transitions from an impermeable elastic barrier to non-adhesive objects sized 1 microm and larger...