Human Reproduction, Vol 12, 2235-2241, Copyright © 1997 by Oxford University Press
A De Pol, F Vaccina, A Forabosco, E Cavazzuti and L Marzona
During human oogenesis two contrasting processes can be observed: germ cell
proliferation and differentiation, and contemporaneous germ cell death. It
is well known that apoptosis is a type of physiological cell death that
occurs in proliferating and differentiating tissues. The aim of this study
is to demonstrate, through ultrastructural and in-situ 3' end labelling
observations in intact sections of human fetal ovaries, that germ cell loss
during fetal life is due to a phenomenon of apoptosis. We evaluated the
presence of programmed cell death in female germ cells in fetal ovaries at
18-20 weeks of postconceptional age. The alterations that occur during
apoptosis were detected by the electron microscope and include cytoplasmic
condensation, organelle relocalization and compaction, chromatin
condensation, and finally, production of membrane-enclosed particles
containing intracellular material, known as apoptotic bodies, that are
phagocytosed. The fragmentation of DNA, characteristic of apoptotic cells,
was detected by the use of the in-situ 3' end labelling procedure on
histological sections of ovaries where only some nuclei of germ cells were
positively stained. The parallel use of these two methods on human ovaries
of 18-20 weeks postconceptional age has allowed us to show that the
numerical decrease of human female germ cells during the fetal period is
due to an apoptotic phenomenon.
ARTICLES
Apoptosis of germ cells during human prenatal oogenesis
Dipartimento di Scienze Morfologiche e Medico Legali, Universita di Modena, Italy.
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