In recent years, the negative impact of oxidative stress on fertility has become widely recognised. Several studies have demonstrated its negative effect on the number and quality of retrieved oocytes and embryos following in-vitro fertilisation (IVF). Melatonin, a pineal hormone that regulates circadian rhythms, has also been shown to exhibit unique oxygen scavenging abilities. Some studies ha...

Although much effort has been made to uncover the mechanism underlying double fertilization, little knowledge has been acquired for understanding the molecular base of gamete recognition, mainly because of technical limitations. Still, progress has been made in terms of the mechanism, including the identification of candidate molecules that are involved in gamete recognition in angiosperms. New...

Signaling pathways controlled by reversible protein phosphorylation (catalyzed by kinases and phosphatases) in the malaria parasite Plasmodium are of great interest, for both increased understanding of parasite biology and identification of novel drug targets. Here, we report a functional analysis in Plasmodium of an ancient bacterial Shewanella-like protein phosphatase (SHLP1) found only in ba...

Fertilization requires recognition, attachment, and membrane fusion between gametes. In metazoans, rapidly evolving surface proteins contribute to gamete recognition and adhesion. Flowering plants evolved a double fertilization process wherein two immotile sperm cells are delivered to female gametes by the pollen tube, guided by elaborate communications between male and female reproductive orga...

In animals, microtubules and centrosomes direct the migration of gamete pronuclei for fertilization. By contrast, flowering plants have lost essential components of the centrosome, raising the question of how flowering plants control gamete nuclei migration during fertilization. Here, we use Arabidopsis thaliana to document a novel mechanism that regulates F-actin dynamics in the female gametes...

Kin selection on one hand, and gamete interactions in post-ejaculatory sexual the other are two major research themes that have risen to prominence over past half century simultaneously developed into central fields of evolutionary biology. There is a natural connection between two: when gametes interact with each other, very commonly many them originate from same parent thus siblings. For exam...

The empirical study byMargaretNelson, RosannaHertz, andWendyKramer on stakeholder attitudes toward gamete donor anonymity and limits on gamete donation, ‘Gamete Donor Anonymity and Limits on Numbers of Offspring: The Views of Three Stakeholders’ (hereafter Gamete Donor Anonymity),1 is commendably particular on one level yet noticeably vague on another. It approaches the anonymity issue2 at a le...