Background: The concepts of reproductive biology were changed by stating the ovarian reserve in postnatal mammalian females is replenished. The aim of this study was to investigate the expression of OCT4 in the mice ovarian tissue during different stages of mouse estrous cycle. Materials and Methods: The mice were considered as pro-estrous, estrous, met-estrous and di-estrous based on the cell ...

this paper summarizes the proceedings of a 1 day national symposium entitled “reproductive biology, stem cells biotechnology and regenerative medicine” held at shahid sadoughi university of medical sciences, yazd, iran on 3rd march 2016. here, we collected the papers that presented and discussed at this meeting by specialists that currently researched about the overlaps of the fields of reprodu...

BACKGROUND Cryopreserved ovarian cortical tissue acts as a source of primordial follicles (PF) which can either be auto-transplanted or cultured in vitro to obtain mature oocytes. This offers a good opportunity to attain biological parenthood to individuals with gonadal insufficiency including cancer survivors. However, role of various intra- and extra-ovarian factors during PF growth initiatio...

Spheroid formation is one property of stem cells-such as embryo-derived or neural stem cells-that has been used for the enrichment of cancer stem-like cells (CSLCs). However, it is unclear whether CSLC-derived spheroids are heterogeneous or whether they share common embryonic stemness properties. Understanding these features might lead to novel therapeutic approaches. Ovarian carcinoma is a dea...

Our RNAseq analyses revealed that ZIP4 is a top gene up-regulated in more aggressive ovarian cancer cells. ZIP4's role in cancer stem cells has not been reported in any type of cancer. In addition, the role and regulation of ZIP4, a zinc transporter, have been studied in the context of extracellular zinc transporting. Factors other than zinc with ZIP4 regulatory effects are essentially unknown....

background: several studies have demonstrated the immunosuppresive effects of mes-enchymal stem cells (mscs) in allogeneic or mitogenic interactions. cell-cell contact inhibition and secretion of suppressive soluble factors have been suggested in this re-gard. objective: to investigate if adipose derived mscs could inhibit jurkat lym-phoblastic leukemia t cell proliferation during coculture. me...

Although the existence of tumor-initiating cells (T-ICs) in several types of human cancer has been documented, the contribution of somatic stem cells to the development of T-ICs has remained unclear. Here, we show that normal mouse ovary contains epithelial cell adhesion molecule (EpCAM)-expressing stem-like cells that possess the ability to differentiate into cytokeratin 8 (CK8)-expressing epi...

BACKGROUND Stem cells in the ovary comprise of two distinct populations including very small embryonic-like stem cells (VSELs) and slightly bigger progenitors termed ovarian stem cells (OSCs). They are lodged in ovary surface epithelium (OSE) and are expected to undergo neo-oogenesis and primordial follicle (PF) assembly in adult ovaries. The ovarian stem cells express follicle stimulating horm...

Aggressive epithelial ovarian cancer (EOC) is genetically and epigenetically distinct from normal ovarian surface epithelial cells (OSE) and early neoplasia. Co-expression of epithelial and mesenchymal markers in EOC suggests an involvement of epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) in cancer initiation and progression. This phenomenon is often associated with acquisition of a stem cell-like ph...

Cancer stem cells are responsible for tumor initiation and chemoresistance. In ovarian cancer, the CD44+/MyD88+ ovarian cancer stem cells are also able to repair the tumor and serve as tumor vascular progenitors. Targeting these cells is therefore necessary to improve treatment outcome and patient survival. The previous demonstration that the ovarian cancer stem cells are resistant to apoptotic...