Equine preantral follicle harvesting, processing, and in vitro culture: the journey has already started
K.T. Haag, D.M. Magalhães-Padilha, M.O. Gastal, J.R. Figueiredo, E.L. Gastal
Anim Reprod, vol.10, n3, p.187-198, 2013
Abstract
Preantral follicles are of great abundance in mammalian ovaries and the vast majority (>99.9%) never become ovulatory; therefore, the ability to rescue these otherwise wasted follicles seems very appealing. Considering there are striking similarities in antral follicle dynamics between mares and women, the mare might become a good model to study early (preantral and antral) folliculogenesis in women, with several advantages related to using an animal model. Studies in our laboratory recently validated the use of a transvaginal, ultrasound-guided ovarian Biopsy Pick-Up (BPU) method to harvest preantral follicles using the mare as a model to study early folliculogenesis (Haag et al., 2013a, b, c). This article will review some of the important findings of our recent studies related to the harvesting, processing, and culture of equine preantral follicles and discuss those with the limited information available in the literature
Keywords
biopsy pick-up, equine, folliculogenesis, ovary, preantral follicle