Morphological Study of Isolated Ovarian Preantral Follicles Using Fibrin Gel Plus Platelet Lysate after Subcutaneous Transplantation

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

1 Department of Embryology at Reproductive Biomedicine Research Center, Royan Institute for Reproductive Biomedicine, ACECR, Tehran, Iran;Department of Cell and Molecular Biology, Faculty of Biological Sciences, Kharazmi

2 Department of Embryology at Reproductive Biomedicine Research Center, Royan Institute for Reproductive Biomedicine, ACECR, Tehran, Iran;Department of Anatomy, Faculty of Medicine, Baqiyatallah (a.s.) University of Medic

3 Department of Cell and Molecular Biology, Faculty of Biological Sciences, Kharazmi University, Tehran, Iran

4 Department of Embryology at Reproductive Biomedicine Research Center, Royan Institute for Reproductive Biomedicine, ACECR, Tehran, Iran

Abstract

Objective
Ovarian and follicle transplantation may preserve fertility in young cancer survivors. In this study, we have transplanted preantral follicles using fibrin gel as a carrier and fibrin gel supplemented with platelet lysate (PL) as a rich source of angiogenic and growth factors. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the role of fibrin gel and PL in follicle transplantation.
Materials and Methods
In this experimental study, ovaries were taken from 14-day- old Naval Medical Research Institute (NMRI) mice. Preantral follicles were dissected from the ovaries and encapsulated into fibrin gel supplemented with 5, 10, 15 or 20% PL, then transplanted back into the same donor mice. Fibrin gels supplemented with PL that contained preantral follicles were placed in a subcutaneous pocket in the back of the neck of the recipient, donor mouse (the same mouse that follicles were collected). After 14 days the grafts were processed and embedded in paraffin blocks, then serially sectioned for histological evaluation. We counted the follicles and classified them according to stage (preantral or antral). Data were presented as mean ± standard error of mean (SEM) and analysed by analysis of variance (ANOVA) and the Kruskal-Wallistest.
Results
The mean percentage of recovered follicles encapsulated and transplanted in each group were 33.30 ± 2.47 (fibrin gel), 31.96 ± 1.90 (fibrin gel+5% PL), 34.02 ± 2.44 (fibrin gel+10% PL), 48.31 ± 2.06 (fibrin gel+15% PL) and 17.60 ± 2.79 (fibrin gel+20% PL). There was a significant increase in the recovery rate of grafted follicles with fibrin gel+15% PL (48.31%; p < 0.001). The percentage of preantral follicles showed no significant difference in all groups (p < 0.05). The percentage of antral follicles showed a significant decrease in follicles grafted with fibrin gel+20% PL when compared to the other groups (11.77%; p < 0.005) but no significant difference was observed in the other groups.
Conclusion
The use of PL in follicle transplantation can improve ovarian follicular survival rate.

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