Expression of growth and differentiation factor 9 (GDF-9) and its effect on the in vitro culture of caprine preantral ovarian follicles

Growth differentiation factor‐9 improves development, mitochondrial activity and meiotic resumption of sheep oocytes after in vitro culture of secondary follicles

“…Similar results were reported after culture of goat secondary follicles in medium containing 100 or 200 ng/ml GDF‐9 associated with FSH (Almeida et al, ). Although FSH is important for follicle survival and growth (Barros et al, ; Gouveia et al, ), when both GDF‐9 and FSH were added to the culture medium, the positive effects of GDF‐9 alone were not recorded (Almeida et al, ). Therefore, our results could be justified by the fact that FSH may induce the expression of intra‐ovarian factors inhibiting any additional effect of GDF‐9.…”

“…The biological functions of GDF‐9 are mediated by interacting with its type I (ALK‐5) and II (BMPRII) receptors (Mazerbourg et al, ; Vitt, Mazerbourg, Klein, & Hsueh, ). Expression of mRNA and/or protein for GDF‐9 was demonstrated in the oocyte in several species (ovine: Mery et al, ; Kona et al, ; bovine: Pennetier et al, ; caprine: Silva, Hurk, Tol, Roelen, & Figueiredo, ; Almeida et al, ; bubaline: Abdel‐Ghani, El‐Sherry, & Abdelhafeez, ; human: Aaltonen et al, ). BMPRII and ALK‐5 receptors are expressed in all follicular categories (caprine: Silva et al, ), and this expression increases with follicular growth (ovine: Qin Chen, Yu, Wang, Xu, & Yang, ).…”

“…In vitro studies have demonstrated that GDF‐9 maintains viability and induces primordial follicle activation (human: Hreinsson et al, ; caprine: Martins et al, ; Dipaz‐Berrocal et al, ), as well as stimulates proliferation of granulosa and/or theca cells from secondary (human: Hreinsson et al, ) and antral (rat: Vitt, McGee, Hayashi, & Hsueh, ; bovine: Spicer et al, ) follicles. Moreover, GDF‐9 decreased follicular atresia and promoted secondary follicle development (mouse: Hayashi et al, ; Cook‐Andersen et al, ; rat: Orisaka et al, ; caprine: Almeida et al, ). In addition, GDF‐9 acts synergistically with FSH to promote in vitro growth of rat isolated preantral follicles (Hayashi et al, ), to maintain the survival and stimulate activation and growth of primordial follicles after culture of bovine ovarian cortex (Tang et al, ).…”

Effect of Different Combinations of the Growth Factors and Hormones on In vitro Maturation of Goat Preantral Follicles

“…Moreover, the follicular development is regulated by various endocrine and paracrine factors (Araújo et al, 2011). The ovarian follicular development occurs due to action of various growth factors on the receptors that are expressed in a stage-specific form and act synchronically to promote stimulatory and/or inhibitory effects (Almeida et al, 2011). Among various growth factors and hormones, Growth Hormone (GH), Insulin like Growth Factor-I (IGF-I), Epidermal Growth Factor (EGF), Thyroxin (T 4 ) and Follicle Stimulating Hormone (FSH) have been highlighted in the present study.…”

The development and integrity of equine pre‐antral follicles cultured in vitro with follicle‐stimulating hormone (FSH) supplementation

“…The action of FSH is mainly stimulatory, and it affects follicular growth through specific receptors known as G protein‐coupled receptors (Almeida et al., ). These receptors use cyclic adenosine monophosphate (cAMP), and a signalling cascade that stimulates the cellular response through the junction with the receptor is triggered (Saraiva et al., ).…”