... embryogenesis. In this Review, we summarize recent studies on oocyte and embryo metabolism and its regulation, with a particular focus on its association with key developmental events such as fertilization, zygote genome activation and cell fate determination. In addition, we discuss the mechanisms of certain...

...Maëlys Loh; Fred Bernard; Antoine Guichet ABSTRACT Microtubules and their associated motors are important players in nucleus positioning. Although nuclear migration in Drosophila oocytes is controlled by microtubules, a precise role for microtubule-associated molecular motors in nuclear migration...

...Zhihua Zhang; Ruyi Liu; Hongbin Zhou; Qun Li; Ronggui Qu; Weijie Wang; Zhou Zhou; Ran Yu; Yang Zeng; Jian Mu; Biaobang Chen; Xuejiang Guo; Qing Sang; Lei Wang ABSTRACT The accumulation and storage of maternal mRNA is crucial for oocyte maturation and embryonic development. PATL2 is an oocyte...

... Germ granule Oocyte Primordial germ cell Sperm National Institutes of Health (R37HD037047) In sexually reproducing organisms, specialized cells called germ cells undergo meiosis to produce gametes, oocytes and sperm, which subsequently fuse to create a zygote. Germ...

...Meng-Meng Shan; Yuan-Jing Zou; Zhen-Nan Pan; Hao-Lin Zhang; Yi Xu; Jia-Qian Ju; Shao-Chen Sun ABSTRACT Mammalian oocyte maturation is a unique asymmetric division, which is mainly because of actin-based spindle migration to the cortex. In the present study, we report that a kinesin motor KIFC1...

...Mansour Aboelenain; Karen Schindler ABSTRACT Mammalian oocytes are transcriptionally quiescent, and meiosis and early embryonic divisions rely on translation of stored maternal mRNAs. Activation of these mRNAs is mediated by polyadenylation. Cytoplasmic polyadenylation binding element 1 (CPEB1...

... regulatory protein 1 (ESRP1) and found that it induced female infertility in mice. Esrp1 deletion perturbed spindle organization, chromosome alignment and metaphase-to-anaphase transformation in oocytes. The first polar body extrusion was blocked during oocyte meiosis owing to abnormal activation of spindle...

...Naokazu Inoue; Takako Saito; Ikuo Wada ABSTRACT Gamete fusion is an indispensable process for bearing offspring. In mammals, sperm IZUMO1–oocyte JUNO recognition essentially carries out the primary step of this process. In oocytes, CD9 is also known to play a crucial role in gamete fusion...

... trimethylation and meiotic cell cycle progression in mouse oocytes . Nat. Commun.   9 , 3477 . 10.1038/s41467-018-05930-x Sherman , S. L. , Petersen , M. B. , Freeman , S. B. , Hersey , J. , Pettay , D. , Taft , L. , Frantzen , M. , Mikkelsen , M. and Hassold , T. J...

... single mutant females showed minor chorion defects, but chorions from eggs laid by larp6a;larp6b double mutant females were more defective than those from larp6a single mutants. Electron microscopy revealed defective chorionogenesis during oocyte development. Despite this, maternal zygotic single...

... owing to the untimely destruction of cohesin. Recently, we have proved that cyclin B2 can compensate for cyclin B1 in CDK1 activation for the oocyte meiosis G2/M transition. In the present study, we identify an interaction between cyclin B2/CDK1 and separase in mouse oocytes. We find that cyclin B2...

..., play key roles in the regulation of cellular lipid metabolism. Although it is well known that mammalian oocytes and embryos contain LDs and that the amount of LDs varies among animal species, their physiological functions remain unclear. In this study, we have developed a method based on two-step...

...Elizabeth Vargas; Karen P. McNally; Daniel B. Cortes; Michelle T. Panzica; Brennan M. Danlasky; Qianyan Li; Amy Shaub Maddox; Francis J. McNally ABSTRACT Meiotic spindles are positioned perpendicular to the oocyte cortex to facilitate segregation of chromosomes into a large egg and a tiny polar...

...) and asymmetric transport in oocytes. The control of spindle length by Ensconsin is Kinesin-1 independent but centrosome separation and oocyte transport require targeting of Kinesin-1 to microtubules by Ensconsin. However, the molecular mechanism used for this targeting remains unclear. Ensconsin contains...

...Hong-Hui Wang; Yu Zhang; Feng Tang; Meng-Hao Pan; Xiang Wan; Xiao-Han Li; Shao-Chen Sun ABSTRACT Cytoskeletal dynamics are involved in multiple cellular processes during oocyte meiosis, including spindle organization, actin-based spindle migration and polar body extrusion. Here, we report...

...-1-1/ Summary: A forced lipophagy system, established by expressing an autophagy adaptor on the surface of lipid droplets, demonstrates that depletion of lipid droplets in fertilized mouse embryos causes developmental retardation. Autophagy Lipid droplet Oocyte Embryo Mouse...

..., is a highly conserved and ubiquitously expressed protein. However, its roles in meiotic oocytes are not known. In the present study, we find that mouse oocytes depleted of HDAC3 are unable to completely progress through meiosis, and are blocked at metaphase I. These HDAC3 knockdown oocytes show spindle...

...Simon I. R. Lane; Stephanie L. Morgan; Tianyu Wu; Josie K. Collins; Julie A. Merriman; Elias ElInati; James M. Turner; Keith T. Jones Mouse oocytes carrying DNA damage arrest in meiosis I, thereby preventing creation of embryos with deleterious mutations. The arrest is dependent on activation...

...Shi Yin; Xiaohua Jiang; Hanwei Jiang; Qian Gao; Fang Wang; Suixing Fan; Teka Khan; Nazish Jabeen; Manan Khan; Asim Ali; Peng Xu; Tej K. Pandita; Heng-Yu Fan; Yuanwei Zhang; Qinghua Shi Proper oocyte development is crucial for female fertility and requires timely and accurate control of gene...

... plate, is responsible for G2/M transition in meiotic mouse oocytes. Depletion of CenpH by morpholino injection decreased cyclin B1 levels, resulting in attenuation of maturation-promoting factor (MPF) activation, and severely compromised meiotic resumption. CenpH protects cyclin B1 from destruction...