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An oocyte (/ ˈ oʊ ə s aɪ t /, oöcyte, or ovocyte is a female gametocyte or germ cell involved in reproduction.In other words, it is an immature ovum, or egg cell.An oocyte is produced in a female fetus in the ovary during female gametogenesis.
An ovarian follicle is a roughly spheroid cellular aggregation set found in the ovaries. It secretes hormones that influence stages of the menstrual cycle . In humans, women have approximately 200,000 to 300,000 follicles at the time of puberty , [ 1 ] [ 2 ] each with the potential to release an egg cell (ovum) at ovulation for fertilization ...
Oocytes residing in the primordial follicle of the ovary are in a non-growing prophase arrested state, but are capable of highly efficient homologous recombinational repair of DNA damages including double-strand breaks. [9] This capability allows genome integrity to be maintained and offspring health to be protected. [9]
A depiction of the ovarian cycle in animals. In human adult females, the primordial follicle is composed of a single oocyte surrounded by a layer of closely associated granulosa cells. In early stages of the ovarian cycle, the developing follicle acquires a layer of connective tissue and associated blood vessels. This covering is called the theca.
The ovary changes structure and function beginning at puberty. [2] Since the ovaries are able to regulate hormones, they also play an important role in pregnancy and fertility. When egg cells (oocytes) are released from the fallopian tube, a variety of feedback mechanisms stimulate the endocrine system, which cause hormone levels to change. [10]
In other words, primary oocytes reach their maximum development at ~20 weeks of gestational age, when approximately seven million primary oocytes have been created; however, at birth, this number has already been reduced to approximately 1-2 million per ovary. At puberty, the number of oocytes decreases even more to reach about 60,000 to 80,000 ...
Scientists still know very little about the ovaries, ... At birth, female babies have around 1 to 2 million oocytes, and roughly 1,000 immature eggs are lost each month after the first period. In ...
The zona pellucida is a translucent matrix of cross-linked glycoprotein filaments that surrounds the mammalian oocyte and is 6.5–20 μm thick depending on the species. Its formation, which depends on a conserved zona pellucida-like (ZP) module that mediates the polymerization of egg coat components, [2] is critical to successful fertilization. [3]