Abstract
Analysis of the mechanisms that drive the growth and meiotic maturation of the female germ cell, the oocyte, has been greatly facilitated by the development of conditions that support these processes in vitro. Easily identified signposts of oocyte differentiation enable the ability of specific culture conditions to recapitulate normal oocyte development to be robustly assayed. Here we describe a technique for deriving complexes consisting of an oocyte surrounded by somatic granulosa cells from follicles and growing these granulosa cell–oocyte complexes in vitro. Such culture systems are useful for uncovering the principles of germ cell development and for improving our ability to preserve human and animal fertility through assisted reproduction.
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Acknowledgments
H.J.C. is supported by grants from the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health & Human Development of the National Institutes of Health (R21HD086407), Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR), the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, and the Research Institute of the McGill University Health Centre (RI-MUHC). Research reported in this publication is solely the responsibility of the author and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health. We apologize to colleagues whose research could not be cited owing to space constraints.
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El-Hayek, S., Yang, Q., Clarke, H.J. (2018). Growth In Vitro of Granulosa Cell–Oocyte Complexes of the Mouse. In: Verlhac, MH., Terret, ME. (eds) Mouse Oocyte Development. Methods in Molecular Biology, vol 1818. Humana Press, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4939-8603-3_1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4939-8603-3_1
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Publisher Name: Humana Press, New York, NY
Print ISBN: 978-1-4939-8602-6
Online ISBN: 978-1-4939-8603-3
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