OBJECTIVE To test whether angiotensin II (AngII) could modulate apoptosis of human granulosa-lutein (GL) cells from gonadotropin-stimulated follicles. DESIGN In vitro assays on mural and cumulus granulosa cells. SETTING University laboratory and private IVF practice. PATIENT(S) One hundred six consecutive women undergoing 113 IVF cycles. INTERVENTION(S) Purified human GL mural or cumulu...

The present study was conducted to investigate the effects of ovarian morphology on oocyte quantity and quality, as well as the effect of preincubated granulosa cells (PGCs) on in vitro maturation of buffalo oocytes and steroid hormone production. A total of 52 ovarian pairs were grouped into 3 types: Type I (with functional corpus luteum), Type II (with regressed corpus luteum), or Type III (w...

A better understanding of the paracrine and autocrine regulatory loops within the cumulus-oocyte complex (COC) is fundamental for the improvement of in vitro maturation (IVM) outcomes in humans and domestic species. This review presents the most important local regulators identified in the COC to date with special attention to those secreted by the oocyte and acting on cumulus cells, as well as...

BACKGROUND Supplementation of bovine oocyte-cumulus complexes during in vitro maturation (IVM) with 1 μM of docosahexaenoic acid (DHA), C22:6 n-3 polyunsaturated fatty acid, was reported to improve in vitro embryo development. The objective of this paper was to decipher the mechanisms of DHA action. RESULTS Transcriptomic analysis of 1 μM DHA-treated and control cumulus cells after 4 h IVM sh...

STUDY QUESTION Is the activity of sirtuin 3 (SIRT3) altered in granulosa and cumulus cells from young women with reduced ovarian reserve or women of advanced maternal age? SUMMARY ANSWER SIRT3 mRNA and active protein in granulosa and cumulus cells were decreased in women with reduced ovarian reserve and advanced maternal age. WHAT IS KNOWN ALREADY Young women with reduced ovarian reserve or...

Background Polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) is one of the reasons of infertility in women with chronic anovulation. Ovulation process is tightly regulated by molecular mechanisms controlling proliferation/differentiation of cells. Telomeres, TTAGGG tandem repeats, are transcribed into a non coding RNA, named TERRA. Recent studies suggest that TERRA sustain several important functions at chromos...

BACKGROUND Oocytes are the female gametes which establish the program of life after fertilization. Interactions between oocyte and the surrounding cumulus cells at germinal vesicle (GV) stage are considered essential for proper maturation or 'programming' of oocytes, which is crucial for normal fertilization and embryonic development. However, despite its importance, little is known about the m...

This paper postulates that in the ovary, the close association between the cumulus cells and the oocytes permits the fertilizing ability of the oocytes to be determined indirectly through cumulus cell DNA status. The objective was to use a modified comet assay to analyse cumulus cell DNA and relate the data to oocyte fertilization after intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI) procedures. Oocyte...

Ovulation is the complex, inflammatory-like process by which the cumulus oocyte complex (COC) is released from a mature, preovulatory follicle through a rupture site at the ovarian surface and requires expression of genes that generate and stabilize the expanded extracellular COC matrix. Gene profiling analyses of COCs at selected time intervals during ovulation revealed that many genes associa...

CD44 is a polymorphic and polyfunctional transmembrane glycoprotein widely expressed in many types of cells. Here, the expression of this protein on human membrana granulosa was studied by two techniques. Using confocal laser scanning microscopy (CLSM) with the mouse monoclonal antibody to human CD44 (clone G44-26), cells immunoreactive for CD44 were observed in both cumulus and mural granulosa...