The effects of aging and fsh on the epigenome of the mouse oocyte
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[ACCESS RESTRICTED TO THE UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI AT REQUEST OF AUTHOR.] With aging, females experience a natural decline in their reproductive success, partly due to a decline in the quality of the oocyte (ovum/egg). In our laboratory, we study molecules that decorate the DNA and control when genes are turned on or off. These decorations to DNA are called epigenetic modifications. My research identifies differences in epigenetic modifications between oocytes of young and aged female mice. This work helps explain the reason why oocytes from aged females are less able to result in offspring. Infertility affects nine to eleven percent of women worldwide. The development of assisted reproductive therapies (ART) has helped women circumvent these reproductive limitations, but these procedures can also decrease oocyte quality just as described above with aging. ART procedures commonly utilize ovarian hormone stimulation as the first step. In this thesis, we study how ovarian hormone stimulation affects DNA methylation in oocytes. DNA methylation is a specific epigenetic modification associated with turning genes off. To do this, we used a mouse model that does not produce a hormone necessary for oocyte growth and fertility. The name of the hormone is follicle stimulating hormone or FSH. We determined how the absence of FSH affects DNA methylation in the developing eggs. This knowledge will allow us to better understand how hormone stimulation is affecting the egg and lead to the development of safer ART procedures.
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