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Assessing Mitochondrial Activity In Embryos From Heat-Stressed Ova, Kimberly Ann Nagle

Masters Theses

Elevated ambient temperatures negatively impacts pregnancy rates in agriculturally important females. An oocyte undergoing meiotic maturation exposed to a physiologically-relevant heat stress results in alterations of developmentally important processes and reportedly decreases subsequent developmental potential after fertilization. To address problems of reduced competence after exposure to heat stress for the first 12 h of meiotic maturation (hIVM), Payton (2009) assessed the transcriptome profiles of oocytes and associated cumulus cells by microarray analysis and reported heat-induced perturbations at the molecular level in the oocyte. Specifically, 20 transcripts involved in mitochondrial function exhibited alterations in relative abundance of heat-stressed oocytes …