In vitro culture of ovarian follicles from Peromyscus

Abstract

The ovarian follicle is the fundamental functional tissue unit of mammalian ovary. Each ovarian follicle contains one single oocyte. Isolation and in vitro culture of ovarian follicles to obtain fertilizable oocytes have been regarded as a promising strategy for women to combat infertility. The follicles from Peromyscus are considered as a better model than that from inbred mice for studying follicle culture. This is because Peromyscus mice are outbred (as with humans) with an increased life span. In this article, we reviewed studies on this subject conducted using Peromyscus follicles. These studies show that the conventional 2D micro-drop and 3D hanging-drop approaches established for in vitro culture of early preantral follicles from inbred mice are not directly applicable for cultivating the follicles from Peromyscus However, the efficiency could be significantly improved by culturing multiple early preantral follicles in one hanging drop of Peromyscus ovarian cell-conditioned medium. It is further revealed that the mechanical heterogeneity in the extracellular matrix of ovary is crucial for developing early preantral follicles to the antral stage and for the subsequent ovulation to release cumulus-oocyte complex. These findings may provide valuable guidance for furthering the technology of in vitro follicle culture to restore fertility in the clinic.

Microfluidic Encapsulation of Ovarian Follicles for 3D Culture

“…Alg: alginate; O-Alg: oxidized alginate; and Col: collagen. The figure is reprinted and redrawn from references 48 and 49 with permission from Elsevier (for panels A and D) and from reference 50 with permission from John Wiley & Sons, Inc. (for panels B, C, and E).…”

“…As schematically illustrated in Fig. 1, the ovary consists of two distinct layers of tissues 48,49 : the outer cortex and the inner medulla and the former is much stiffer than the latter. Therefore, efforts have been made recently to produce biomimetic ovarian microtissue that recapitulates the mechanical heterogeneity for biomimetic 3D culture of rodent ovarian follicles, as detailed below.…”

Microscale Biomaterials with Bioinspired Complexity of Early Embryo Development and in the Ovary for Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine

“…, the mechanical heterogeneity) during their development in the ovary in vivo (left, Fig. 7A) 55–56,116 . Using the microfluidic device showing in Fig.…”

Effect of animal-sourced bioactive peptides on the in vitro development of mouse preantral follicles

“…Due to the progressing development of assisted reproductive biotechnologies, these culture and maturation models of follicles mimic the native environmental differences of the developing follicles in vitro to obtain the functional germ cells [4]. Moreover, the culture models of follicles in vitro allow the investigation of specific regulatory mechanisms related with in vivo folliculogenesis, as well as the search of diverse supplementary factors to sustain follicular development and the assessment of therapeutic agents against various reproductive disorders [5,6].…”