OBJECTIVE To describe in vitro development of human embryos derived from an individual with a homozygous pathogenic variant in NLRP7 (19q13.42) and recurrent hydatidiform mole (HM), an autosomal recessive condition thought to occur secondary to an oocyte defect. METHODS A patient with five consecutive HM pregnancies was genomically evaluated via next generation sequencing followed by controll...

As a tumor suppressor homologue during mitosis, Chk2 is involved in replication checkpoints, DNA repair, and cell cycle arrest, although its functions during mouse oocyte meiosis and early embryo development remain uncertain. We investigated the functions of Chk2 during mouse oocyte maturation and early embryo development. Chk2 exhibited a dynamic localization pattern; Chk2 expression was restr...

The apical domain of the embryo is partitioned into distinct regions that will give rise to the cotyledons and the shoot apical meristem. In this article, we describe a novel screen to identify Arabidopsis thaliana embryo arrest mutants that are defective in this partitioning, and we describe the phenotype of one such mutant, bobber1. bobber1 mutants arrest at the globular stage of development,...

Background: Diabetes mellitus is a metabolic condition characterized by elevated blood glucose levels secondary to absolute impairment of insulin secretion. Maternal diabetes has been demonstrated to adversely affect pre implantation embryo development and pregnancy outcomes. Emerging evidence has implicated that these effects are associated with compromised oocyte competence. Several developme...

In glial C6 cells constitutively expressing wild-type p53, synthesis of the calcium-binding protein S100B is associated with cell density-dependent inhibition of growth and apoptosis in response to UV irradiation. A functional interaction between S100B and p53 was first demonstrated in p53-negative mouse embryo fibroblasts (MEF cells) by sequential transfection with the S100B and the temperatur...

The alternative reading frame (ARF) tumor suppressor mediates growth arrest or apoptosis through activation of the p53 tumor suppressor. A prevailing concept is that ARF uses p21Cip1/Waf1, a p53-responsive gene and cyclin-dependent kinase (Cdk) inhibitor, to block cell cycle progression. Using p21 nullizygous cells, we demonstrate that p21 is nonessential for the antiproliferative activity of A...

Several squirrel species excise the embryo of acorns of most white oak species to arrest germination for long-term storage. However, it is not clear how these acorns counter embryo excision and survive in the arms race of coevolution. In this study, we simulated the embryo excision behavior of squirrels by removing 4 mm of cotyledon from the apical end of white oak acorns differing in embryo de...

At the nonpermissive temperature, somatic embryogenesis of the temperature-sensitive (ts) carrot cell mutant ts11 does not proceed beyond the globular stage. This developmental arrest can be lifted by the addition of proteins secreted by wild-type cells to the culture medium. From this mixture of secreted proteins, a 32-kD glycoprotein, designated extracellular protein 3 (EP3), that allows comp...

Human preimplantation embryos exhibit high levels of apoptotic cells and high rates of developmental arrest during the first week in vitro. The relation between the two is unclear and difficult to determine by conventional experimental approaches, partly because of limited numbers of embryos. We apply a mixture of experiment and mathematical modeling to show that observed levels of cell death c...

The tumor suppressor p19 (p14 in humans), encoded by the Ink4a/Arf locus, is mutated, deleted, or silenced in many forms of cancer. p19 induces growth arrest by antagonizing the activity of the p53negative regulator, Mdm2, thereby inducing a p53 transcriptional response. p19 can also inhibit cell cycle progression of mouse embryo fibroblasts lacking Cip1 or lacking both Mdm2 and p53, although i...