In prepuberal mouse ovaries oocytes in the non-growing pool show constant but low levels of DNA-dependent RNA polymerase activity. The first event in the initiation of oocyte growth is a marked stimulation of RNA polymerase activity in the oocyte nucleolus. This is followed by increases in oocyte area, oocyte nucleolar area, oocyte nuclear area and nucleoplasmic RNA synthesis in that sequence. ...

Oocyte maturation is a complex process involving nuclear and cytoplasmic maturation. The nuclear maturation is a chromosomal segregation and the cytoplasmic maturation involves the reorganization of the cytoplasmic organelles, mRNA transcription and storage of proteins to be used during fertilization and early embryo development. The mechanism of oocyte maturation in vivo and in vitro still are...

OBJECTIVE To better understand women's beliefs, priorities, and attitudes toward oocyte cryopreservation, to appreciate the extent of their reproductive education, and to track the reproductive paths of women who chose to undergo oocyte cryopreservation treatment. DESIGN An anonymous 30-question survey. SETTING Not applicable. PATIENT(S) From 2005-2011, 478 women completed ≥1 oocyte cryop...

Increasing infertility is one of the most serious health problems today. Over past few years, we have had opportunity to follow progress technologies focused on production embryos in vitro (i.e., fertilization and intracytoplasmic sperm injection, genetic engineering, or somatic cell nuclear transfer. Oocyte maturation important processes vitro. Despite recent this field, developmental competen...

BACKGROUND Oocyte donation has been permitted by Swedish legislation since January 2003. While donors are anonymous to the receiving couple, offspring have the legal right to receive identifying information about the donor when they reach adult age. Our aim was to investigate factors of potential importance for women's willingness to donate oocytes. METHOD A questionnaire regarding attitudes ...

The assessment of oocyte quality in human in vitro fertilization (IVF) is getting increasing attention from embryologists. Oocyte selection and the identification of the best oocytes, in fact, would help to limit embryo overproduction and to improve the results of oocyte cryostorage programs. Follicular fluid (FF) is easily available during oocyte pick-up and theorically represents an optimal s...

The main objective of the present study was to identify novel oocyte-specific genes in three different species: bovine, mouse, and Xenopus laevis. To achieve this goal, two powerful technologies were combined: a polymerase chain reaction (PCR)-based cDNA subtraction, and cDNA microarrays. Three subtractive libraries consisting of 3456 clones were established and enriched for oocyte-specific tra...

BACKGROUND Our aim was to evaluate whether extending the interval between human chorionic gonadotrophin (hCG) priming and immature oocyte retrieval increases the oocyte maturation rate following in vitro maturation (IVM). METHODS This study was performed retrospectively. IVM was performed on 113 polycystic ovary syndrome patients (n = 120 cycles). Oocyte collection was performed either 35 h (...

LIMKi 3 is a specific selective LIMK inhibitor against LIMK1 and LIMK2, while LIMK1 and LIMK2 are the main regulators of actin cytoskeleton to participate in many cell activities. However, the effect of LIMKi 3 in porcine oocyte meiosis is still unclear. The present study was designed to investigate the effects of LIMKi 3 and potential regulatory role of LIMK1/2 on porcine oocyte meiotic matura...