1 Department of Reproductive Science and Medicine, Division of Paediatrics, Obstetrics and Gynaecology, Imperial College School of Medicine, 2 Hammersmith Hospital, Du Cane Road, London, W12 0NN, and 3 St Mary's Hospital, London W2 1PG, UK
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Abstract |
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Key words: atresia/culture/follicle/insulin/ovary
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Introduction |
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Various culture systems have been used for the in-vitro maturation (IVM) of human follicles which have generally been adapted from those used successfully in other species. Since human stromal tissue is more dense than in rodents, enzymatic isolation of follicles has generally been used. Human preantral follicles have been enzymatically isolated and grown in agar for 5 days (Roy and Treacy, 1993). Primordial follicles from fetal ovaries have been cultured in a similar way for a longer period (Zhang et al., 1995
), and primordial follicles from adult ovaries have also been isolated and cultured for 5 days, although no growth was detected (Oktay et al., 1996
), and 25 days when some hormone production was exhibited (Osborn et al., 1997
). Preantral follicles have also been mechanically isolated and cultured for several weeks, developing antra, but becoming atretic at the end of the culture period (Abir et al., 1997
). Recently it has also been reported that preantral follicles obtained during IVF follicular aspiration can be cultured from a diameter of 100 µm to one of 300 µm (Wu et al., 1998
).
In this study we used a culture system designed for the culture of human primordial, primary and secondary follicles to early antral stages (Hovatta et al., 1997). Follicles are cultured within small pieces of ovary, which has the advantage of maintaining all the normal intercellular contacts and support. We found that a complex medium such as
-minimum essential medium (MEM) supported significant growth of follicles, that supplementation of the medium with follicle-stimulating hormone (FSH) significantly reduced atresia, and that follicle growth and survival was increased when serum was replaced by a combination of human serum albumin and a commercial insulin/transferrin/selenium mix. We have therefore developed a serum-substituted culture system which supports the growth and differentiation of human primordial follicles to secondary and occasionally preantral stages over a 15-day period. This will allow the study of growth factor, steroid, and hormone interactions in vitro during human early folliculogenesis.
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Materials and methods |
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Ovarian tissue was collected into HEPES-buffered minimum essential medium (MEM, Gibco, Life Technologies, Paisley, UK), immediately transported to the laboratory and placed in an incubator within 10 min. Two pieces of tissue (35 mm diameter) were removed from the biopsy and immediately placed in Bouin's fixative for 13 h before being transferred to 70% alcohol for storage. One of these pieces was sent for clinical analysis to assess follicle density for the prediction of ovarian reserve (Lass et al., 1997). The other acted as the control for pieces put into culture.
Culture of ovarian cortex tissue
The remaining tissue was cut into small pieces (13 mm thick) with a scalpel and mounted needles, using a stereo microscope. Tissue pieces were randomly distributed to parallel cultures. One to four tissue pieces were transferred to Millicell culture plate well inserts (Millipore, Bedford, MA, USA) which had been pre-coated with artificial extracellular matrix (ECM) (Matrigel; Becton Dickinson, Bedford, MA, USA). This was achieved by diluting ECM 1:3 with serum-free Earle's balanced salt solution (EBSS, Gibco), and placing 100 µl into each well insert. The inserts rested in 1 ml of pre-equilibrated culture medium in the wells of 24-well plates (Nunclon, Roskilde, Denmark) (Hovatta et al., 1997). This volume was reduced to 0.4 ml for Experiment 3 so that the pieces of tissue were covered only by a thin layer of culture medium. Every second day 150 µl (or 400 µl for the 1 ml cultures) of the culture medium was replaced by fresh medium. The plates were incubated at 37°C under 5% CO2 for 5, 10 or 15 days.
In the first experiment, three basic culture media were compared. EBSS supplemented with 0.47 mmol/l pyruvate (Sigma, Poole, UK), Minimum Essential Medium Alpha (-MEM, Gibco) and Waymouth's Medium (Gibco) were each supplemented with 10% heat-inactivated human serum (obtained from women undergoing pituitary desensitization for IVF on days 35) and antibiotics (50 U/ml penicillin G, 50 µg/ml streptomycin sulphate, 0.125 µg/ml amphotericin B; antibiotic antimycotic solution, Gibco). In the second experiment
-MEM was supplemented with either 10% serum and antibiotics, or 10% serum, antibiotics and 300 mIU/ml FSH (Orgafol: Organon, Cambridge, UK). In the third experiment
-MEM was supplemented with either 10% serum and antibiotics, or 2.5% human serum albumin (HSA, Zenalb 20, Bio Products Laboratory, Elstree, UK; effective concentration 10%), 1% ITS (insulin/transferrin/selenium; Gibco; effective concentration: 10 µg/ml insulin, 5.5 µg/ml transferrin, 6.7 ng/ml sodium selenite) and antibiotics.
Hormone level measurement
The FSH, luteinizing hormone (LH), and insulin content of 10% serum in -MEM and HSA in
-MEM at media concentrations was measured by micro-particle enzyme immunoassay (Abbott Axsym, Maidenhead, UK). For serum in
-MEM, average values were FSH, 0.44 ± 0.1 mIU/ml; LH, 0.18 ± 0.04 mIU/ml; insulin, 0.33 ± 0.03 µU/ml. For HSA in
-MEM average values were FSH, 0.12 ± 0.03 mIU/ml; LH, 0.11 ± 0.02 mIU/ml; insulin, 0.17 ± 0.03 µU/ml.
Assessment of follicular development and survival
After 5, 10 and 15 days of culture, pieces of tissue were fixed in Bouin's fixative, dehydrated through an alcohol series, and embedded in paraffin wax. The wax blocks were serially sectioned (5 µm) on a Leica RM2135 microtome, stained with haemotoxylin and eosin, and analysed microscopically using a x63 objective. The number of follicles in the tissue pieces were counted, and growth and development of the follicles was assessed by measuring follicle diameters, stages of development and viability.
Follicular diameter (from edge to edge of basal lamina or edge to edge of theca cell layer(s)) was measured by a microscope graticule at what was considered the centre of the follicle, indicated either by the presence of the nucleolus, or if one was not present, the widest point. Measurements taken were converted from graticule units to micrometres by multiplication by 1.85 (conversion factor for x63 objective). The stage of follicle development (primordial, primary, secondary, or preantral) was assessed as follows: follicles with one layer of a majority of flattened pre-granulosa cells were considered to be primordial (Figure 1A,B); those with one layer of a majority of expanded, cuboidal granulosa cells were considered to be primary (Figure 1A,B
); those with more than one layer of granulosa cells were considered to be secondary (Figure 1C
); and those with many layers of granulosa cells were considered to be preantral follicles (Figure 1D
). Follicles were assessed to be healthy or atretic on the basis of morphology. A degenerated oocyte nucleus, uneven or folded nuclear membrane (Figure 1E,G
), vacuoles in the oocyte (Figure 1F
), or pyknotic nuclei of several granulosa cells (Figure 1E,G
) were all regarded as signs of atresia (Gougeon, 1996
).
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Statistical analysis
2 and MannWhitney U tests were used for statistical analyses as appropriate.
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Results |
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Effect of media composition
The first experiment was designed to determine which culture medium to use for subsequent studies and investigated the effect of different media on the growth and development of follicles in the culture system (patient number = 9; mean age ± SEM: 35.1 ± 1.3; total number of follicles = 524). Two complex media (-MEM and Waymouth's) were compared with a simple salt solution (EBSS), all of which contained 10% human serum.
The majority of follicles cultured in all the media tested initiated growth during the first 5 days in culture (Figure 2). On day 0, at the time of ovarian biopsy, 53% of healthy non-atretic follicles in the ovarian cortex were primordial, with 47% at the primary and secondary stages. After 5 days in culture, the proportion of healthy follicles in the primordial pool had fallen to 17% (
-MEM), 26% (EBSS), and 37% (Waymouth's), while the proportion of follicles at primary and secondary stages had increased significantly both in
-MEM (to 83%; P = 0.0002) and EBSS (to 74%; P = 0.0001). There was also an increase in the proportion of growing follicles in Waymouth's to 63%, although this was not significant (Figure 2
).
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On the basis of the significant levels of initiation of growth, significant increases in diameter of follicles and greater numbers reaching secondary and preantral stages, -MEM was selected as the basal medium for further experiments.
Effect of FSH
The second experiment investigated the effect of addition of 300 mIU/ml FSH to -MEM medium (with 10% serum) on both the growth and viability of follicles (patient number = 13; mean age ± SEM: 33.8 ± 1.2; total number of follicles = 626).
The majority of follicles cultured with and without FSH initiated growth during the first 5 days of culture (Figures 1C, 4). On day 0, at the time of biopsy, 72% of healthy non-atretic follicles in the ovarian cortex were primordial, with only 28% at the primary and secondary stages. After 5 days in culture, the proportion of healthy follicles in the primordial pool had dropped by over half to between 29% (FSH) and 26% (+FSH), while the proportion of follicles at primary and secondary stages had increased in the absence and presence of FSH to 71% (P = 0.0001) and 74% (P = 0.0001) respectively (Figure 4
).
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Effect of serum replacement
The third experiment investigated the effect of replacement of 10% human serum with HSA + ITS on the growth and viability of follicles (patient number = 16; mean age ± SEM: 34.1 ± 1.3; total number of follicles = 786).
Most of the follicles cultured with serum and with HSA + ITS initiated growth during the first 7 days of culture (Figure 7). On day 0, at the time of biopsy, 83% of healthy non-atretic follicles in the ovarian cortex were primordial, with only 17% at the primary and secondary stages. After 5 days in culture, the proportion of healthy follicles in the primordial pool had dropped to between 26% (serum) and 37% (HSA + ITS), whilst the proportion of follicles at primary, secondary, and preantral stages had increased to 74% (P = 0.001) in the presence of serum and to 63% (P = 0.0001) with HSA + ITS (Figure 7
).
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Discussion |
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A variety of media have been used for the culture of follicles from a number of species. -MEM, a complex medium, has been successfully used to culture mouse and rat (Eppig and Schroeder, 1989
; Carroll et al., 1991
; Nayudu and Osborn, 1992
; Boland et al., 1993
; Spears et al., 1994
) bovine (Ralph et al., 1995
; Braw Tal and Yossefi, 1997
) and human (Abir et al., 1997
) follicles. A variation on
-MEM, D-MEM, has also been used to culture human follicles (Roy and Treacy, 1993
), and recently MEM has been used in the culture of preantral cat follicles (Jewgenow et al., 1998
). Waymouth's, another complex medium, has been used in mouse (Eppig and O'Brien, 1996
), cow (Wandji et al., 1996
), baboon (Wandji et al., 1997
), and fetal human follicle culture (Zhang et al., 1995
). Human follicles have also been cultured in EBSS (Hovatta et al., 1997
) and Ham's F10 (Wu et al., 1998
).
Our experiments using this culture system showed that in tissue cultured in -MEM, follicle growth was significantly greater and development was improved compared to that seen in follicles cultured with Waymouth's medium and EBSS (Figure 3
).
-MEM is a complex medium containing amino acids, vitamins, ribonucleosides, and deoxyribonucleosides, in addition to the usual inorganic salts and energy sources (pyruvate, glucose) of a simple salt solution. It appears that human ovarian tissue requires the metabolic support that these additional components give in culture.
There was an initiation of growth of primordial follicles to primary and secondary stages after 5 days in culture in all the media tested, and indeed in all the experiments performed. This initiation of growth is interesting, since in vivo only a small proportion of the primordial follicles would be activated to begin to grow each day in response to signals which are, as yet, unknown. This growth initiation also occurs in xenografts of human ovary in severe combined immunodeficiency (SCID) mice (Oktay et al., 1998), and in bovine (Wandji et al., 1996
; Braw Tal and Yossefi, 1997
) and baboon (Wandji et al., 1997
) follicles in vitro. It may be that on removal of cortical tissue from the ovary, there is a withdrawal of an inhibitory signal (Peters et al., 1973
), which allows resting primordial follicles to begin to grow once they are no longer in the normal ovarian environment.
FSH has been used as a media supplement for the culture of follicles from several species. In the mouse addition of FSH to culture media promotes follicle survival and antrum formation in early preantral follicles (Cortvrindt et al., 1997), and follicles cultured from preantral to preovulatory stages (Nayudu and Osborn, 1992
; Spears et al., 1994
). In the rat preantral follicle in vitro, FSH increases growth and viable cell number in combination with cyclic guanosine 3',5'-monophosphate (cGMP) or serum (McGee et al., 1997
). In isolated large preantral human follicles, FSH promotes antrum formation and oestrogen production in vitro (Abir et al., 1997
), and also increases progesterone and androstenedione production (Roy and Treacy, 1993
). Furthermore FSH appears to play an important role in follicular atresia. It is known that FSH prevents apoptosis in preantral and antral follicles of mouse (Baker and Spears, 1997
). Indeed in rat, FSH appears to be the most important survival factor in early antral follicles (Chun et al., 1996
), and will suppress apoptosis in serum-free culture in preantral (McGee et al., 1997
), antral (Tilly and Tilly, 1995
) and preovulatory (Chun et al., 1994
) follicles. In isolated human preantral follicles, FSH was also seen to reduce atresia (Roy and Treacy, 1993
).
In our culture system, addition of FSH to the media greatly reduces atresia. It is possible that the main action of FSH is in preventing apoptotic atresia in our cultured follicles, allowing them to survive in culture. However, our results also show that addition of FSH to the culture media significantly increases follicle diameter, so that a mitogenic role for FSH cannot be ruled out. Therefore FSH does have an effect on the growth of primordial, primary and secondary human follicles in vitro. Previous observations have implied that FSH is not required in vivo until antrum formation. Preovulatory follicles can be induced in the ovaries of women with hypogonadism (who have negligible gonadotrophin levels) 2 weeks after gonadotrophin injection (Santen and Paulsen, 1973), suggesting that preantral follicles may be present. However, ovaries from women with FSH receptor mutation rarely contain follicles past primary stages (Aittomaki et al., 1996
). Furthermore, recent studies (Oktay et al., 1998
) have shown that human follicles in xenografts require FSH stimulation to progress past early secondary stages. FSH receptor mRNA is present in some primary stage follicles and all follicles from the late secondary stage (Oktay et al., 1997
). Therefore human follicles are capable of responding to FSH at early stages both in vivo and in vitro, and FSH may play a role in follicular development in the ovarian cortex.
Human follicles can also be cultured in this system without addition of serum. HSA and ITS proved to be an effective substitute for serum and indeed follicle growth later in culture was significantly improved with HSA and ITS. This effect cannot be explained by the possible gonadotrophin content of either the serum or the HSA, as both were negligible. However, ITS provides 10 µg/ml insulin in the media, whereas average levels in media containing just serum were 0.33 ± 0.03 µU/ml, equivalent to 14 ng/ml, about 700-fold lower. Therefore, insulin may be stimulating follicle growth. It has been shown that human granulosa cells respond to insulin by augmenting oestrogen and progesterone production (Erickson et al., 1990; Willis et al., 1996
). Insulin also causes cell proliferation in rat granulosa (Peluso et al., 1991
) and theca cells (Duleba et al., 1997
), and in Chinese hamster ovary cells (Li et al., 1997
). The transferrin and selenium present in ITS may also be acting as free-radical scavengers in the media (Roth, 1997
), which may affect growth, and are likely to influence atresia. Atresia was reduced in media containing ITS as opposed to that containing serum.
The media which we intend to use in future experiments on the basis of these investigations will consist of -MEM with FSH, HSA, and ITS supplementation. The culture system can now be used to examine the effects of other growth factors under defined serum-free conditions. However, further optimization of the medium is necessary to obtain maximum growth and minimum atresia of follicles and allow development to antral stages. Once they have reached such stages it may be possible to semi-isolate follicles and grow them further in different culture systems. Immature oocytes could then be removed and matured further in preparation for fertilization. Human oocytes removed from antral follicles (215 mm diameter) have been shown to be capable of fertilization, and live births have been reported (Veeck et al., 1983
; Cha et al., 1991
; Trounson et al., 1994
; Barnes et al., 1995
; Jaroudi et al., 1997
).
The first stage of an IVM system for human follicles has therefore been achieved. Extensive further research is required to achieve full maturation of primordial follicles however. Ovarian biopsy is a relatively simple method of obtaining ovarian tissue and growth of follicles in vitro to stages where they can be used for IVF would have major benefits for infertile women, clinicians and scientists. It may be especially important to women who are undergoing procedures likely to result in sterilization such as chemotherapy or radiotherapy (Wood et al., 1997). Ovarian tissue can be removed before treatment begins and cryopreserved until an appropriate time. With IVM there is no known risk of transmission of cancerous cells which could possibly occur if the tissue were to be re-grafted (Gosden et al., 1997
; Shaw and Trounson, 1997
). Finally, the culture of intact follicles within ovarian stromal tissue provides a unique opportunity to examine the regulation of cell differentiation and follicle growth, particularly at preantral stages.
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Acknowledgments |
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Notes |
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5 To whom correspondence should be addressed
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References |
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Submitted on November 16, 1998; accepted on March 8, 1999.