Reproduction Abstracts

Introduction: It has recently been demonstrated that mouse oocytes respond to DNA damage by arresting in Meiosis I. This arrest has been shown to require the activity of the Spindle Assembly Checkpoint (SAC) and the DNA Damage Response (DDR). Given oocytes lack the equivalent of a G2/M checkpoint for DNA damage, the SAC response may be critical to defend against formation of DNA damaged embryos. It is currently unknown whether the DDR SAC pathway is sensitive to physiological ...

Whether the adult mammalian ovary contains oogonial stem cells (OSCs) is controversial. They have been isolated by fluorescence-activated cell sorting (FACS) using the germline marker DEAD box polypeptide 4 (DDX4), previously assumed to be cytoplasmic, not surface-bound. Furthermore their stem cell and germ cell characteristics remain disputed. We applied a validated protocol to isolate mouse putative OSCs from whole ovarian cell suspensions, then assessed their in vitro</...