Like Medieval alchemists who searched for an elixir that could turn base metals into gold, biology's modern alchemists have learned how to
use oocytes to turn normal skin cells into valuable stem cells, and even whole animals.
If scientists could uncover the oocyte's secrets, it might be possible to replicate its tricks without
using oocytes themselves, a resource that is fairly difficult to obtain and the use of which raises numerous ethical questions.
The lab of Whitehead Member Terry Orr - Weaver has conducted perhaps the most comprehensive look yet at changes in translation and protein synthesis during a developmental change,
using the oocyte - to - embryo transition in Drosophila as a model system.
Not exact matches
With advances in
oocyte cryopreservation technology, fertility rates
using frozen eggs are comparable to rates with fresh eggs.
It also should relieve the worries of the scholars involved with the journal Communio ¯ the
use of
oocytes in epigenetic reprogramming was one of the major reasons they feared the resulting cell was a disabled embryo.
An excellent option for these women is to
use an egg donor or
oocyte donor.
Egg freezing, or
oocyte preservation, is a proven technology that allows women to freeze their eggs and store them for
use in the future.
In a new study, Murphy, a molecular biologist at Princeton University, showed that long - lived bodily, or somatic, cells in Caenorhabditis elegans, a one - millimeter nematode commonly
used as a model for aging studies in labs, activate genetic pathways completely separate from those found in long - lived egg, or
oocyte, cells.
Using a powerful microscope to observe mouse
oocytes as they split, Ellenberg's group found that the spindles assembled into two coherent structures, one for the future egg and one for the future polar body.At first, spindles appeared throughout the cell in a sort of mesh.
By turning on a several genes in adult cells, scientists can transform skin or blood cells into stem cells that can become every cell type in the body — without the ethical and practical complications of
using embryos or
oocytes.
Hughes then isolated the
oocytes from the fruit flies and analyzed them
using fluorescent tags that illuminate the DNA threads connecting the chromosomes.
To really make
use of the
oocyte's power, scientists still need to learn how to direct the development of the rejuvenated stem cells and guide them into forming specific tissues.
«Although such differences may be a function of the large sample size and thus not clinically relevant, our findings suggest that
use of ICSI may improve fertilization rates but not implantation or pregnancy rates in the setting of unexplained infertility, advanced maternal age, and low
oocyte [a cell from which an egg develops] yield,» the authors write.
They add that the added convenience and lower cycle costs with
use of cryopreserved
oocytes must be balanced against the lower live birth rates.
Of 11,148
oocyte donation cycles, 2,227 (20 percent) involved
use of cryopreserved donor
oocytes.
The authors write that the reasons for lower live birth rates with
use of cryopreserved
oocytes remain to be established.
Compared to
using fresh
oocytes (eggs) for in vitro fertilization,
use of cryopreserved (frozen) donor
oocytes in 2013 was associated with lower live birth rates, according to a study in the August 11 issue of JAMA.
Donated fresh
oocytes traditionally have been
used immediately, creating embryos for transfer into the uterus, with extra embryos being cryopreserved for later
use.
Mindful of public sensitivities, Daley opted to pursue experiments
using what he considers the least controversial human materials to create new nonpresidential stem cell lines — poor quality embryos and
oocytes that, in his words, «otherwise would have been disposed of as medical waste.»
Use of
oocytes donated for in vitro fertilization (IVF) has increased in recent years.
Women younger than 40, those
using donor
oocytes and those with male partner - related infertility that was treated with either intracytoplasmic sperm injection or sperm donation achieved live birth rates after five or six cycles, taking a median two years of trying, which were similar to rates in couples who were trying to conceive and were not
using any form of treatment after an average of one year.
In women younger than 40 years
using their own
oocytes (eggs), the live - birth rate for the first cycle was 32 percent and remained above 20 percent up to and including the fourth cycle.
To do this, they
used a nanotemplate of known stoichiometry (the human Glycine receptor expressed in Xenopus
oocytes) and studied several fluorescent proteins to see the percentage of proteins that was photoactivated.
Walker: Bill
used to keep the embryos and
oocytes — when he was bringing them back up from the farm — in his top shirt pocket.
Co-author Jean Cozzi of genOway, a biotech company in Lyon, France, noticed that other researchers had
used a chemical called MG132 to halt one of the early stages in rat
oocyte development.
In their initial experiments, Hwang and his colleagues
used cells from a single donor to try to create embryonic clones; they transferred nuclei from ovarian cells back into the donors» own
oocytes.
«The idea will be to obtain
oocytes and discarded embryos from IVF treatments in order to test this technology
using human samples.»
«The
use of nonhuman
oocytes for SCNT is currently the only ethically justifiable option given the large numbers of eggs required to derive cloned human stem cell lines,» he said.
The experiments have been carried out
using Xenopus laevis
oocytes, an animal model
used by the laboratory to study fundamental processes involved in gene regulation.
When researchers first started
using CRISPR / Cas9 for genome editing in mice, they would often microinject gRNAs along with RNAs encoding Cas9 into the
oocyte.
Outline title: «First live birth
using human
oocytes reconstituted by spindle nuclear transfer for mitochondrial DNA mutation causing Leigh syndrome» by J. Zhang et al. published in outline form by the American Society of Reproductive Medicine's Fertility and Sterility journal website.
Removal of the nuclei in the absence of sucrose and
use of zygotes from vitrified patient rather than donor
oocytes were beneficial, and led to mitochondrial carryover levels below 2 % in the majority of blastocysts, and below 5 % in all of them.
Published in Reproductive Biomedicine Online, scientists have described the technique they
used to create the first live birth after
oocyte spindle transfer to prevent transmission of the mitochondrial disease, Leigh syndrome.
While many important developments impacted the field, two that garnered significant public, political and scientific attention in 2016 were the proliferation of clinics
using unproven stem cell «therapies,» and the steps forward in therapeutic modification of human
oocytes (unfertilized eggs) through a process called mitochondrial replacement therapy (MRT).
They
used the stage of meiosis in Xenopus
oocytes where you find thousands of nucleoli, and everything in the field pointed to the fact they contained amplified genes for ribosomal RNA, and indeed that turned out to be the case.
As outlined below, we
used a microfluidic quantitative PCR (qPCR) system to elucidate the gene expression profiles of individual human
oocytes and small numbers of cumulus cells
using a combination of a large number of samples and targets [12], and then extended our studies via the
use of parthenogenesis, in conjunction with gene expression profiling, as a functional assay of cytoplasmic maturation of
oocytes.
FSH, LH, estradiol and EGF are commonly
used to promote maturation of cumulus - enclosed
oocytes.
Oocyte maturation and embryo development data were entered into a two - by - two contingency table, and Fisher's exact test was
used to generate P - values in Prism version 5.02 for windows (GraphPad Software, Inc.).
Our improved IVM culture conditions may be
used for obtaining mature
oocytes for clinical purposes and / or for derivation of embryonic stem cells following parthenogenesis or nuclear transfer.
Our improved IVM culture conditions may be
used for supplying mature
oocytes for regenerative medicine, including pESC and SCNT - ESC derivation.
Ms. Roxland concurrently served as the Special Advisor to the Commissioner of Health on Stem Cell Research Ethics, where she spearheaded creation of state - wide rules on embryonic stem cell protocols, human - animal chimera research, compensation of women who donate their
oocytes to stem cell research, informed consent processes, re-contact for return of research results and incidental findings, and downstream
uses of biological samples.
The BioMark Dynamic Array microfluidic qPCR system (Fluidigm Corporation, San Francisco, CA) was
used for gene expressions analysis of
oocytes and cumulus cells.
Following in vitro maturation,
oocytes at metaphase II with the presence of a first polar body were activated
using 10 µM calcium ionophore A23187 (Sigma - Aldrich) for 5 min followed by 2 mM DMAP (Sigma - Aldrich) for 4 h at 37 °C in 6 % CO2, 5 % O2 and 89 % N2.
By identifying these factors, it should be possible to induce pluripotency in somatic cells without
using embryos or
oocytes.
Cumulus -
oocyte complexes (COCs) were aspirated from 2 to 5 mm follicles with PBS (containing 5 % FCS) by
using a 5 ml syringe fitted with a 20 - gauge needle.
Much of the work makes
use of the giant
oocyte of amphibians and the equally giant nucleus or germinal vesicle (GV) found in it.
Oocytes were clamped at approximately -30 mV
using two Geneclamp500 Amplifiers (Axon Instruments, La Jolla, CA, USA).
Junctional currents were assessed
using the dual
oocyte voltage clamp technique as described previously [49].
Vitrification of mouse
oocytes using a nylon loop.
«Only MII
oocytes can be
used for IVF,» he explained.