As we know that the sperms function test is widely used for the management of male factor issues worldwide. However, similar parallel test is not available for the management of egg factor issue in female. Do the number of oocytes available for the purpose or the unavailability of the potential biomarkers for oocyte quality and other factors limit the development of oocyte function test? Kindly give your expert opinion.
Dear Dr. Shail;
Firstly, let me thank you for the right focus on the quality issues of the female gamete cells ("oocyte") in addition to the "conventional" quality parameters (of spem). Apparently, the topic deserves scientific interest, studies and papers to be produced.
Secondly, however, obtaining the intact (alive) human oocytes, you have to deal with the strict ethical issues on the biological material of human origin. I also presume that, after getting the ethical confirmation beforehand, the difficulty of finding appropriate female material (ovarium from sexually active women at their child-bearing age or those elderly with inactive ovaries) has to be sorted out. In this respect, I reckon that the leftover material following the ovariectomy or ovario-hysterectomy would be the best-fitting option. Surely, the appropriate confirmations have to be obtained both from the patient herself and the gynecologist/body responsible for providing the healthcare, as appropriate.
Finally, as a personal experience from the "ICSI course" attended, I can say that the integrity and uniformity of the zona pellucida (ZP) would provide the "gross/initial" quality parameter for the oocytes before choosing them as a candidate (host/target) cells for further lab-processing for the IVM, IVF or ICSI.
I appreciate the scientific value of the question and would like to see some good feed-backs on it herein.
Kind regards. Good luck, Omer
Thanks Prof. Omer Ucar for recognizing the quality issues of the oocytes. The scientific community need to generate the potential biomarkers that could be useful for the development of "oocyte function test". The experts in the field (you, me and others) should come forward to address this issue in order to develop oocyte function test (using non-human mammalian species) for the determination of oocyte quality prior to their use in ARTs.