Development of fresh and cryopreserved early-stage ovarian follicles, with special attention to ruminants

Ano: 2009 | Volume: 6 | Número: 1

Autores: R. van den Hurk, R. Santos

Palavras-chave: cryopreservation, follicle, in vitro culture, ovary, transplantation, transplantation

Resumo Inglês:

This paper gives a survey of our research on
the development, cryopreservation, in vitro culture and
transplantation of early-stage follicles in the past two
decades, relative to those obtained by other researchers.
Hereby, attention is specially focussed on findings with
ruminants. Apart from our histological, immunocytochemical,
viability, biochemical, endocrine, cryostore, in vitro and
in vivo data on cow, sheep and goat follicles, some
general information on the various in vitro culture,
cryopreservation and transplantation techniques is
given. We conclude that (i) we are still far away from
obtaining fertilizable oocytes from in vitro cultured
ruminant early-stage follicles, that can be used for invitro
production of healthy embryos or offspring, and
(ii) our cryopreservation techniques seem good enough
to store ruminant early-stage follicles for an
undetermined time without viability impairment,
followed by further development after thawing in shortor
long-term in vitro cultures or in transplantation
experiments.