Oocyte quality in health and disease

健康和疾病中的卵母细胞质量

• 批准号: G0800250/1
• 负责人: Helen Picton
• 金额: $ 57.34万
• 依托单位: University of Leeds
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Research Grant
• 财政年份: 2008
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2008 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=G0800250%2F1
• 关键词: Oocyte; quality; health; disease

In vitro fertilisation (IVF) and associated technologies remain relatively inefficient and costly and the problems worsen with increasing maternal age. One of the main reasons for these low success rates is poor oocyte (egg) quality, as we know very little about the biology of mammalian egg development and the factor(s) which make eggs fertile. This issue is exacerbated by the limited available of human eggs for research. In order to improve the success of assisted conception treatments we need to maximise the number of good quality eggs we collect from a woman?s ovaries but we must be careful that egg quality does not suffer at the expense of egg quantity. The current momentum in assisted conception is therefore to produce a small number of good eggs from each patient and so maximise their change of a pregnancy. However, this goal can only be achieved if we can identify the best eggs for IVF and use this information to improve patient treatments and so maximise egg quality. The objective of this project is therefore to measure egg quality in healthy women and to use this information to establish a cellular and molecular signature of egg health from patients with defined causes of infertility. The project aims to: (1) define and link biochemical and metabolic markers of egg quality; (2) investigate a number of key genes which may contribute to egg health; and (3) measure the impact of different assisted reproduction treatment regimes on egg quality. Some aspects of the research will be conducted using cow eggs as these tissues are a good model for human egg development; other components of the project will be conducted using human eggs which have been donated for research by infertility patients. We have already developed and validated the molecular biology methods and assays of egg protein turnover and energy metabolism which will be utilised on this project to measure egg quality. The data generated by the proposed studies will significantly advance our understanding of human egg biology and will ultimately help reduce the cost and improve the success rates of assisted conception treatments.

体外受精（IVF）和相关技术仍然相对低效和昂贵，问题随着母亲年龄的增加而恶化。这些低成功率的主要原因之一是卵子质量差，因为我们对哺乳动物卵子发育的生物学和使卵子受精的因素知之甚少。这一问题由于可供研究的人类卵子有限而加剧。为了提高辅助受孕治疗的成功率，我们需要最大限度地从女性身上收集优质卵子。但我们必须注意，卵子的质量不会以牺牲卵子数量为代价。因此，目前辅助受孕的趋势是从每个病人身上产生少量的优质卵子，从而最大限度地提高他们怀孕的几率。然而，这一目标只有在我们能够确定体外受精的最佳卵子，并利用这些信息改善患者的治疗，从而最大限度地提高卵子质量的情况下才能实现。因此，该项目的目标是测量健康妇女的卵子质量，并利用这些信息建立具有明确原因的不孕症患者卵子健康的细胞和分子特征。该项目旨在：(1)定义和链接蛋品质的生化和代谢标志物；(2)研究一些可能有助于鸡蛋健康的关键基因；(3)测量不同辅助生殖处理方式对卵子品质的影响。研究的某些方面将使用母牛的卵子进行，因为这些组织是人类卵子发育的良好模型；该项目的其他组成部分将使用不孕症患者捐赠的人类卵子进行研究。我们已经开发并验证了鸡蛋蛋白质周转和能量代谢的分子生物学方法和测定方法，这些方法和测定方法将在本项目中用于测量鸡蛋质量。拟议的研究所产生的数据将大大提高我们对人类卵子生物学的理解，并最终有助于降低成本，提高辅助受孕治疗的成功率。