Project description:Human granulosa cells are follicular cells surrounding the oocyte. Human granulosa cells are retrieved during in vitro fertilization a process where patients undergo hormonal stimulation including FSH and LH/hCG stimulation. Under the influence of the luteinizing hormone (LH) a process called luteinization they differentiate to luteal cells and contribute to the corpus luteum. Therefore, this cellular system is a good model for human corpus luteum (CL). To study processes within the human CL, IVF-derived GCs from patients were cultured for two to five days and then analyzed with mass spectrometry based shotgun proteomics.
Project description:We used MethylCap-seq and RRBS to profile methylomes of purified human ovarian granulosa cells. Genomic DNA methylation patterns in ovarian granulosa cells were compared between two groups of women: i) oocyte donors (n=20) who were young (age 26 ± 2.2 years) and had robust response to ovarian stimulation during assisted reproductive technology (ART) (mean number of oocytes retrieved = 25); versus ii) poor responders (n=20) who were older (age 40 ± 2.3 years) and responded poorly to ovarian stimulation during ART (oocytes retrieved ≤4 and peak estradiol level ≤ 1000 pg/ml). The first group served as healthy control. The second group represented the majority of women in their early 40s who have the natural age-related decline of ovarian functions and therefore respond poorly to ovarian stimulation during ART. We compared DNA methylomes in ovarian granulosa cells from oocyte donors versus poor responders using two approaches: MethylCap-seq for broader genomic coverage, and RRBS for absolute quantification. Due to very limited amount of materials available from each poor responder, samples containing equal amounts of granulosa cell DNA were pooled from 10 individuals in each group. A second set of experiments pooling granulosa cell DNA samples from independent donor and poor responder groups (ten individuals each) was then performed.
Project description:Granulosa cell proliferation and differentiation are essential for follicle development. Breast cancer amplified sequence 2 (BCAS2) is necessary for spermatogenesis, oocyte development, and maintaining the genome integrity of early embryos in mice. However, the function of BCAS2 in granulosa cells is still unknown. We show that conditional disruption of BCAS2 causes follicles development failure; cell proliferation markers PCNA and Ki67 positive cell ratio are unchanged in granulosa cells. However, specific deletion of BCAS2 causes BrdU positive cell ratio to decrease, cell cycle arrest appearance, DNA damage, and cell apoptosis increase in granulosa cells, RPA1 was abnormally stained in granulosa cells. Furthermore, RNA-Seq results reveal that knockout of BCAS2 results in cellular senescence gene unusual expression. BCAS2 participates in the PRP19 complex to mediate alternative splicing (AS) of E2f3 and Flt3l mRNA to inhibit the cell cycle. Knock down of BCAS2 results in a significantly decrease of BrdU positive cell ratio in Human granulosa-like tumor(KGN) cell line. Thus, BCAS2 regulates granulosa cell proliferation, DNA damage repair, and cell apoptosis. BCAS2 is vital for female fertility.
Project description:RNA was extracted from normal human granulosa cells from IVF patients (hGC1 and hGC2 samples) and from adult-type ovarian granulosa cell tumor samples (H1, H8, H20, H23, H24, H28, H30, H33, H4, H18) as described in Jamieson et al, 2010. RNA from all samples was linearly amplified using the Whole Transcriptome Amplification kit (Sigma), starting from 300ng of RNA, and with 12 amplifications cycles. cDNA was purified on columns and sent to the Nimblegen platform for hybridization and transcriptional profiling. The FOXL2 locus was gentoyped in tumor samples, and all samples were found positive for the recurrent somatic mutation p.Cys134Trp which is present in >95% of adult-type ovarian granulosa cell tumors (Shah et al, 2009).
Project description:Biparental human embryonic stem cell lines were differentiated into granulosa-like cells and sorted for AMHR2+ granulosa marker. Parthenogenetic human embryonic stem cell lines were differentiated into granulosa-like cells with or without the presence of igf2.