Reproduction Abstracts

Introduction: DAZL (deleted in azoospermia-like) is an RNA binding protein essential for germ cell entry into meiosis and later stages of germ cell maturation, and its absence is associated with infertility in vertebrates. Efforts to study DAZL and its in vivo RNA targets have been largely limited to mouse, thus human-specific investigations are required.Methods: Human DAZL protein was immunoprecipitated from 17 week ovarian lysate bound RNAs we...

Introduction: The chemotherapy agent etoposide is a topoisomerase II (topo II) inhibitor, and is considered safe to administer during pregnancy. However, assessment of its effects on the developing ovary, when germ cells are undergoing initiation of meiosis and forming follicles, has been limited. We have investigated this using ovarian tissue culture.Methods: E13.5 mouse ovaries were cultured for 12 days on an agar block, with etoposide added for the fi...

Introduction: In the absence of pregnancy, the resumption of a new estrous cycle is assured by functional and structural regression of the corpus luteum (CL). We have recently characterized the involvement of Nodal, a morphogen from transforming growth factor beta superfamily, on functional luteolysis in the mare (Galvao et al, 2015 Endocrinology, 157:858–871). Also, tumor necrosis factor α (TNF) has been reported to mediate both functional and structural luteal regr...