In recent years, social and cultural trends have resulted in women delaying childbirth, thereby leading to reproductive senescence as a growing public health problem. We discuss potential etiologies for age-related female reproductive decline. We bring supportive evidence to the central role of mitochondrial dysfunction and oxygen radicals in the process of aging in general and reproductive sen...

BACKGROUND The percentage of women giving birth after the age of 35 increased in many western countries. The number of women remaining childless also increased, mostly due to aging oocytes. The method of oocyte donation offers the possibility for infertile older women to become pregnant. Gestation after oocyte-donation-IVF, however, is not without risks for the mother, especially at advanced ag...

In mammals, females are born with finite numbers of oocytes stockpiled as primordial follicles. Oocytes are "reawakened" via an ovarian-intrinsic process that initiates their growth. The forkhead transcription factor Foxo3 controls reawakening downstream of PI3K-AKT signaling. However, the identity of the presumptive upstream cell surface receptor controlling the PI3K-AKT-Foxo3 axis has been qu...

Mouse oocytes were collected 13.5-29,5hr after hCG injection at 4hr intervals, then activated with 7% ethanol for lmin. The oocytes col!ected 13.5hr after hCG injection did not respond to ethanol activation. High activation rates {90,2-98.3%) were obtained in oocytes activated 17.5-29.5hr after iniection with hCG. Haploid parthenogenones were dominant though the nurnber decreased as the age of ...

BACKGROUND There is a growing body of evidence that testicular function has decreased rapidly over the last 50 years. However, much less is known about corresponding trends in ovarian function. Herein, we examine the temporal changes in ovarian function in a large sample of infertile patients from the Czech Republic over a period of 14 years. METHODS In a retrospective study, we analysed a la...