BACKGROUND A limitation to our ability to distinguish between developmentally competent
and incompetent eggs is our still only partial knowledge of the critical features that are …

Many different chromosomal races with reduced chromosome number due to the presence
of Robertsonian fusion metacentrics have been described in western Europe and northern …

Global silencing of transcriptional activity in the oocyte genome occurs just before the
resumption of meiosis and is a crucial developmental transition at the culmination of …

In mammals, oocyte acquires a series of competencies sequentially during folliculogenesis
that play critical roles at fertilization and early stages of embryonic development. In mouse …

In mammals, paternal and maternal pronuclei undergo profound chromatin reorganisation
upon fertilisation. How these events are orchestrated within centromeric regions to ensure …

Aging decreases the fertility of mammalian females. In old oocytes at metaphase II stage
(MII) there are alterations of the chromatin configuration and chromatin modifications such …

The oocyte (maternal) nucleolus is essential for early embryonic development and embryos
originating from enucleolated oocytes arrest at the 2-cell stage. The reason for this is …

During the final step of oogenesis, the oocyte nucleus is subject to large-scale modifications
that correlate with transcriptional silencing. While oocytes with dense chromatin around the …

Telomeres are repeated sequences that protect the ends of chromosomes and harbour DNA
repair proteins. Telomeres shorten during each cell division in the absence of telomerase …

In mammals, mature oocytes and early preimplantation embryos contain transcriptionally
inactive structures termed nucleolus precursor bodies instead of the typical fibrillo-granular …