TITLE:
Parthenogenesis and activation of mammalian oocytes for in vitro embryo production: A review
AUTHORS:
Suresh Dinkar Kharche, Hemant Shankar Birade
KEYWORDS:
Epigenetic Modification; Genomic Imprinting; In-Vitro Maturation; Oocytes Activation; Parthenogenesis
JOURNAL NAME:
Advances in Bioscience and Biotechnology,
Vol.4 No.2,
February
28,
2013
ABSTRACT: Parthenogenesis
is a form of asexual reproduction found in females, where growth and
development of embryos occurs without fertilization by a male. Parthenogenesis
occurs naturally in aphids, Daphnia,
rotifers, nematodes and some other invertebrates but can also be induced
efficiently in mammalian oocytes by providing appropriate stimuli invitro. Recently, parthenogenesis has attracted wide attention
because of the role of activated oocytes in the field of research that have
been described such as intra cytoplasmic sperm injection, cloning by nuclear
transfer, somatic cell cloning, investigating culture conditions etc. &
potential for deriving pluripotent stem cell lines and their differentiation
into various cell lines that can be utilized for various tissue engineering
applications. The parthenogenetically activated oocytes possess maternal genome
and can developed in to either haploid, diploid or polyploidy embryos with
the help of it we can analyze the possible role of all the genes involved in
imprinting processes as well as the role the paternal genome plays during early
embryo development by comparing them with fertilized embryos. Several methods
are able to induce parthenogenetic activation through the elevation of cytoplasmic
free calcium in oocytes. But one common, universal method or activation
agents has not been developed for all species because the process is highly
specific for each species. Therefore, activation step for each species need
to be optimized accordingly. This
review describes the general method of activation of mammalian oocytes and their genomic imprinting analysis.