Abstract
Our understanding of the post-transcriptional mechanisms involved in follicular atresia is limited; however, an important development has been made in understanding the biological regulatory networks responsible for mediating follicular atresia. MicroRNAs have come to be seen as a key regulatory actor in determining cell fate in a wide range of tissues in normal and pathological processes. Profiling studies of miRNAs during follicular atresia and development have identified several putative miRNAs enriched in apoptosis signaling pathways. Subsequent in vitro and/or in vivo studies of granulosa cells have elucidated the functional role of some miRNAs along with their molecular pathways. In particular, the regulatory roles of some miRNAs have been consistently observed during studies of follicular cellular apoptosis. Continued work should gradually lead to better understanding of the role of miRNAs in this field. Ultimately, we expect this understanding will have substantial benefits for fertility management at both the in vivo or/and in vitro levels. The stable nature of miRNA holds remarkable promise in clinical use as a diagnostic tool and in reproductive medicine to solve the ever-increasing fertility problem. In this review, we summarize current knowledge of the involvement of miRNAs in follicular atresia, discuss the challenges for further work and pinpoint areas for future research.
Highlights
During the development and maturation of the mammalian ovary, a highly complicated, spontaneous phenomenon known as follicular atresia takes place which gets rid of follicles as well as oocytes
Transfection of cultured porcine granulosa cell (GC) with let-7g induced GC death and further bioinformatics, in vitro analysis has shown that let-7g mediates GC apoptosis by targeting the transforming growth factor-β type 1 receptor (TGF-β1) gene [50].An experiment to profile the let-7 family during follicular atresia processes revealed a significant increase of let-7g expression with the progress of atresia [54], suggesting its regulatory role in atresia
Despite the important developments made in understanding the specific roles of miRNAs in modulating follicular atresia, there are still gaps in our understanding that need to be explored and filled
Summary
During the development and maturation of the mammalian ovary, a highly complicated, spontaneous phenomenon known as follicular atresia takes place which gets rid of follicles as well as oocytes This process occurs consecutively in a dictated way from the time of fetal ovary development until the end of reproductive life. Large numbers of miRNAs have been identified and characterized in different species of mammalians’ reproductive tissues and cells [13,14,15,16,17,18,19] They are implicated in various regulatory roles of cellular physiological events including oocyte maturation, apoptosis, proliferation, differentiation, development and biogenesis [17,20,21,22,23,24,25,26,27,28,29,30]. In this review, we pinpoint the current understanding, challenges and perspective of miRNA research with respect to follicular atresia and/or GC apoptosis
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