Hum. Reprod. Advance Access originally published online on May 19, 2005
Human Reproduction 2005 20(9):2463-2469; doi:10.1093/humrep/dei079
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Evolution of the meiotic prophase and of the chromosome pairing process during human fetal ovarian development
1 Departament de Biologia Cel·lular, Fisiologia i Immunologia, 2 Unitat de Bioestadística, Departament de Pediatria, d'Obstetrícia i Ginecologia i Medicina Preventiva, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, 08193 Bellaterra, 3 Servei de Ginecologia i Obstetrícia, Hospital Materno-infantil de la Vall d'Hebron, 08035 Barcelona and 4 Tutor Médica, Berguedà, 19, Barcelona, Spain
5 To whom correspondence should be addressed. Email: montserrat.garcia.caldes{at}uab.es
BACKGROUND: Studies on human oocytes in prophase I are limited due to the difficulty in obtaining the sample. However, a complete study of meiotic prophase evolution and the homologue pairing process is necessary to try to understand the implication of oogenesis in the origin of human aneuploidy. METHODS: A complete analysis of meiotic prophase progression comprising the long developmental time period during which meiotic prophase takes place, based on the analysis of a total of 8603 oocytes in prophase I from 15 different cases is presented. The pairing process of chromosomes 13 and 18 is also described. RESULTS: The findings significantly relate for the first time the evolution of meiotic prophase to fetal development. Although for both chromosomes 13 and 18 a high pairing efficiency is found, pairing failure at the pachytene stage has been observed in 0.1% of oocytes. However, errors at the diplotene stage are substantially increased, suggesting that complete, premature disjunction of the homologues commonly occurs. Moreover, pre-meiotic errors are also described. CONCLUSIONS: Our findings show that homologous chromosomes pair very efficiently, but the high frequency of complete, premature homologue separation found at diplotene suggests that mechanisms other than the pairing process could be more likely to lead to the high aneuploidy rate observed in human oocytes.
Key words: aneuploidy/fetal development/human oocytes/meiosis/synapsis
CiteULike 
Connotea 
Del.icio.us What's this?
This article has been cited by other articles:
|
|
 |
|
  P Robles, I Roig, R Garcia, A Ortega, J Egozcue, L L Cabero, and M Garcia Pairing and synapsis in oocytes from female fetuses with euploid and aneuploid chromosome complements Reproduction, May 1, 2007; 133(5): 899 - 907. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]
|
|
|
|
 |
|
 E. Fragouli, D. Wells, A. Thornhill, P. Serhal, M.J.W. Faed, J.C. Harper, and J.D.A. Delhanty Comparative genomic hybridization analysis of human oocytes and polar bodies Hum. Reprod., September 1, 2006; 21(9): 2319 - 2328. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]
|
|
|
|
|
|
I. Roig, R. Garcia, P. Robles, R. Cortvrindt, J. Egozcue, J. Smitz, and M. Garcia Human fetal ovarian culture permits meiotic progression and chromosome pairing process Hum. Reprod., June 1, 2006; 21(6): 1359 - 1367. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]
|
|