Dan Li

The morphological appearance of zona pellucida (ZP) is considered to be predictive of the quality of the oocytes and embryos. Agar-like ZP represents a com

Background: In mammals, normal fertilization depends on the structural and functional integrity of the zona pellucida (ZP), which is an extracellular matrix surrounding oocytes. Mutations in ZP may affect oogenesis, fertilization and early embryonic development, which may cause female infertility. Methods: A PubMed literature search using the keywords ‘zona pellucida’, ‘mutation’ and ‘variant’ limited to humans was performed, with the last research on June 30, 2022. The mutation types, clinical phenotypes and pregnancy outcomes were summarized and analyzed. The naive Bayes classifier was used to predict clinical pregnancy outcomes for patients with ZP mutations. Results: A total of 29 publications were included in the final analysis. Sixty-nine mutations of the ZP genes were reported in 87 patients with different clinical phenotypes, including empty follicle syndrome (EFS), ZP-free oocytes (ZFO), ZP-thin oocytes (ZTO), degenerated and immature oocytes. The phenotypes of patients were influenced by the types and location of the mutations. The most common effects of ZP mutations are protein truncation and dysfunction. Three patients with ZP1 mutations, two with ZP2 mutations, and three with ZP4 mutations had successful pregnancies through Intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI) from ZFO or ZTO. A prediction model of pregnancy outcome in patients with ZP mutation was constructed to assess the chance of pregnancy with the area under the curve (AUC) of 0.898. The normalized confusion matrix showed the true positive rate was 1.00 and the true negative rate was 0.38. Conclusion: Phenotypes in patients with ZP mutations might be associated with mutation sites or the degree of protein dysfunction. Successful pregnancy outcomes could be achieved in some patients with identified ZP mutations. Clinical pregnancy prediction model based on ZP mutations and clinical characteristics will be helpful to precisely evaluate pregnancy chance and provide references and guidance for the clinical treatment of relevant patients.

To explore the mechanisms of ovarian aging, we performed overall analysis on the age-related alterations of gene expression profiles in mouse germinal vesicle (GV) stage oocytes by means of single-cell RNA-sequencing method (scRNA-seq). Two age groups (5-week-old and 32-week-old) female KM mice were used as young and old models. Subsequently, GV oocytes were collected for scRNA-seq. The bioinformatics was performed to analyze and compare the differences of gene expression profile between GV oocytes of young and old mice. The analysis of scRNA-seq data showed that there were 624 differential expressed genes (DEGs) between two age groups of mouse GV stage oocytes. Four hundred forty-nine DEGs were up-regulated while 175 DEGs were down-regulated in the GV oocytes of the old group. KEGG pathway analysis revealed that the genes involved in mitochondrial function including oxidative phosphorylation and ATP production pathway were significantly down-regulated in GV oocytes of 32-week-old mice, especially the mitochondrial encoded NADH dehydrogenase (mt-Nd), including mt-Nd2, mt-Nd3, mt-Nd4, mt-Nd4L and mt-Nd5. Analysis of DEGs revealed that endoplasmic reticulum stress-related genes including AdipoR2, IRAK-1, RCAN1 and MsrB1 were significantly down-regulated in GV oocytes of 32-week-old mice. Also, analysis of DEGs demonstrated that anti-oxidation-related genes including Erbb3、Rcan1、Gsto2 and Msrb1 were significantly down-regulated in GV oocytes of old group. The disorder of mitochondrial function, endoplasmic reticulum stress and the reduced antioxidant capability might be involved in the progression of oocyte aging. Especially, the down regulation of mitochondrial encoded subunits of respiratory chain complexes might play critical roles in the relevant mechanisms.