-
Protocol
In Vivo Analysis of Heterogeneous Extracellular Vesicles Using a Red-Shifted Bioluminescence Resonance Energy Transfer Reporter Protein
Current methods for characterizing the biodistribution of extracellular vesicles (EVs) are not sensitive enough to track EVs in vivo, despite significant advances over the past decade. Commonly used lipophilic...
-
Article
Open AccessNCOA5 Haplo-insufficiency Results in Male Mouse Infertility through Increased IL-6 Expression in the Epididymis
Male infertility might be caused by genetic and/or environmental factors that impair spermatogenesis and epididymal sperm maturation. Here we report that heterozygous deletion of the nuclear receptor coactivat...
-
Chapter
Ovarian Function and Failure: The Role of the Oocyte and Its Molecules
The ovaries are complex organs by virtue of their primary function and are also genetically unique, since they have a mixture of both somatic cells and germ cells. At birth, each ovarian germ cell or oocyte is...
-
Article
Sphingosine 1-phosphate preserves fertility in irradiated female mice without propagating genomic damage in offspring
-
Article
Aromatic hydrocarbon receptor-driven Bax gene expression is required for premature ovarian failure caused by biohazardous environmental chemicals
Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) are toxic chemicals released into the environment by fossil fuel combustion. Moreover, a primary route of human exposure to PAHs is tobacco smoke1,2. Oocyte destruction and...
-
Article
Oocyte apoptosis is suppressed by disruption of the acid sphingomyelinase gene or by sphingosine -1-phosphate therapy
The time at which ovarian failure (menopause) occurs in females is determined by the size of the oocyte reserve provided at birth, as well as by the rate at which this endowment is depleted throughout post-nat...
-
Article
Mitochondria and the death of oocytes
In females of many species, over half of the germ-cell (oocyte) population dies by apoptosis before birth1. For example, germ-cell numbers peak at 5–7×106 at week 20 of gestation in humans, but drop to less than ...
-
Article
Prolongation of ovarian lifespan into advanced chronological age by Bax-deficiency
Female mammals are endowed with a finite number of oocytes at birth, each enclosed by a single layer of somatic (granulosa) cells in a primordial follicle1,2. The fate of most follicles is atretic degeneration1,3
-
Article
High and low molecular weight DNA cleavage in ovarian granulosa cells: characterization and protease modulation in intact cells and in cell-free nuclear autodigestion assays
To continue elucidation of the biochemical and molecular pathways involved in the induction of apoptosis in granulosa cells (GC) of ovarian follicles destined for atresia, we characterized the occurrence and p...
-
Article
Cleavage of cytoskeletal proteins by caspases during ovarian cell death: evidence that cell-free systems do not always mimic apoptotic events in intact cells
Several lines of evidence support a role for protease activation during apoptosis. Herein, we investigated the involvement of several members of the CASP (cysteine aspartic acid-specific protease; CED-3- or ICE-l...
-
Article
Apoptosis-associated signaling pathways are required for chemotherapy-mediated female germ cell destruction
Female sterility resulting from oocyte destruction is an unfortunate, and in many cases inevitable, consequence of chemotherapy. We show that unfertilized mouse oocytes exposed to therapeutic levels of the ant...
-
Article
The genes of cell death and cellular susceptibility to apoptosis in the ovary: a hypothesis
Recent advances in the field of cell death, primarily derived from gene-transfer experiments and manipulation of tumor cell lines in vitro, have identified key genes responsible for determining whether or not a g...
