BACKGROUND In humans, normal healthy children are regularly produced through
fertilization of fresh oocytes with fresh spermatozoa. However, asynchrony between oocytes …

Fertilizable eggs develop from diploid precursor cells termed oocytes. Once every menstrual
cycle, an oocyte matures into a fertilizable egg in the ovary. To this end, the oocyte …

Aneuploidy in human eggs is the leading cause of pregnancy loss and several genetic
disorders such as Down syndrome. Most aneuploidy results from chromosome segregation …

To examine the effects of maternal ageing on the meiotic apparatus, we obtained oocytes
from naturally cyding women in two age groups, including younger (aged 20–25 years) and …

The effect on the microtubule system of human oocytes of cooling to room temperature for
either 10 or 30 minutes has been investigated. Changes in spindle organization were found …

Human oocyte maturation is considered as the reinitiation and completion of the first meiotic
division from the germinal vesicle stage (prophase I) to metaphase II, and the accompanying …

This bioessay aims to explain the different effects of maternal ageing and postovulatory
oocyte ageing on mammalian oocytes/embryos under the scope of 'the oxygen radical …

Actin filaments (microfilaments) regulate various dynamic events during oocyte meiotic
maturation and fertilization. In most species, microfilaments are not required for germinal …

Studies of human oocytes obtained from women of advanced reproductive age revealed that
spindles are frequently aberrant, with chromosomes sometimes failing to align properly at …

The association between oocyte morphology and subsequent fertilization rate and embryo
quality in intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI) is subject to considerable controversy. This …