Endocrine Abstracts

The factors affecting the regulation of early follicular development are not fully understood. Culture of ovarian cortical biopsies provides a means for investigating initiation of follicle growth. IGF-I has been implicated in the early development of follicles in the primate ovary and the aim of this study was to investigate the effects on IGF-I on recruitment, growth and survival of human preantral follicles. Small ovarian cortical biopsies were obtained, with informed consent and local Ethical committee approval, at routine laparoscopy from 17 premenopausal women. The tissue was cut into small pieces. The effects of increasing doses of IGF-I on follicle development were examined in 9 of the patients as follows: one piece was fixed immediately and the remaining tissue was randomly allocated to 4 culture conditions: alpha MEM with 10 percent HSA supplemented with 0, 1, 10, and 100 nanograms per millilitre IGF-I. The tissue was cultured on inserts coated with growth factor reduced matrigel for up to 14 days. After 7 and 14 days in culture the tissue was fixed, serially sectioned and H and E stained. The follicles were assessed by light microscopy for size, stage of development and health of the follicles. IGF-I at the highest dose significantly (p<0.005) reduced atresia but there was no effect on mean follicle diameter. A further experiment (8 patients) comparing normal and growth factor reduced matrigel showed that culture of tissue on normal matrigel resulted in a lower rate of atresia after 14 days, but under these conditions IGF-I had no effect on follicle survival. Analysis of both studies showed that IGF-I significantly increased the proportion of follicles that had progressed to primary and secondary stages by day 7 (p<0.001). In conclusion, IGF-I may be involved in the initiation of follicle growth, but has no effect on growth and a variable effect on survival. This work was supported by Wellbeing and the MRC.