Oocyte quality is a key limiting factor in female fertility, yet we have a poor understanding of what constitutes oocyte quality or the mechanisms governing it. The ovarian follicular microenvironment and maternal signals, mediated primarily through granulosa cells (GCs) and cumulus cells (CCs), are responsible for nurturing oocyte growth, development and the gradual acquisition of oocyte devel...

In this study, different methods for shell splitting and the effect of freezing prior to drying on shell splitting percentage of pistachio were investigated. A completely randomized design was used to investigate the effects of different freezing temperatures (0, -6, -12 and -18°C), different drying temperatures (80, 90 and 100°C) and different cultivars (Akbari and Kalehghouchi) on shell split...

Histological analysis was carried out on ovarian development in the picnic seabream, Acanthopagrus berda (Forsskål 1775) caught estuarine waters of Calicut, Kerala, India from January to December 2016. Four developmental phases oocyte were identified viz., oogonia proliferation and transformation into primary oocyte, growth phase, secondary phase maturation these are similar those described for...

Intracellular Ca(2+) oscillations at fertilization are responsible for triggering egg activation. The aim of this study was to examine the effect of the age of the oocyte donor and in-vitro maturation on the generation of Ca(2+) transients at fertilization. The results show that <10% of in-vivo and in-vitro matured oocytes from 19-day old mice develop to the blastocyst stage in vitro. In contra...

In this study, we compared the effects of repeated freezing/thawing of human sperm by our in-house method of rapid freezing with slow programmable freezing. Sperm samples from 11 normozoospermic subjects were processed through density gradients and divided into three aliquots: non-frozen, rapid freezing and slow programmable freezing. Sperm in the rapid freezing group had better motility and vi...

Cytokeratins have previously been shown to exist in the Xenopus oocyte cortex. Using three monoclonal antibodies against cytokeratins, we follow the appearance of cytokeratin-containing filaments, and their changes in distribution during oocyte differentiation and maturation. Cytokeratin-containing filaments are shown to change dramatically in distribution in the oocyte during its ontogeny.

Prediction and improvement of oocyte competence are two critical issues in assisted reproductive technology to improve infertility therapy. The lack of reliable and objective predictors of oocyte developmental competence for oocyte/embryo selection during in vitro fertilization hampers the effectiveness of this technology. Likewise, the low pregnancy rate resulting from in vitro maturation of h...

depth of frost penetration is one of the main indices in agriculture, civil and transportation engineering. soil temperature is a function of several factors including: topography, solar radiation, air temperature, moisture content and other physical properties of soil such as thermal capacity, coefficient of heat conductivity, and specific heat. the main objective of the present paper is to de...