YANSHUANG ZHAO, WANXI YANG^*

BIOCELL, Vol.47, No.8, pp. 1709-1725, 2023, DOI:10.32604/biocell.2023.030379 - 28 August 2023

Abstract The phosphoinositide-3-kinase/Akt (PI3K/AKT) signaling pathway is crucial for Sertoli cell development and completing spermatogenesis. Its main role is to promote proliferation and inhibit apoptosis. Many factors activate the PI3K/AKT pathway, like hormones, such as follicle stimulating hormone (FSH), androgen, estrogen, insulin to name a few. Many of these factors have receptors inside or on the surface of Sertoli cells (SCs). This review summarizes how these hormones directly regulate the PI3K/AKT signaling pathway in SCs, which in turn affects SC proliferation and differentiation. Further, hormone-mediated PI3K/AKT signaling also stimulates SC secretion, which is essential for germ More >

XIAOXIA WANG^1,#, ZHONGYUAN YAO^1,2,#, DI LIU¹, CHUNHONG YU^3,*, HUI LI^1,3,*

BIOCELL, Vol.46, No.8, pp. 1803-1806, 2022, DOI:10.32604/biocell.2022.019731 - 22 April 2022

Abstract Each stage of embryonic development, including normal gamete maturation, fertilization, zygotic genome activation, and cleavage, is crucial for human reproduction. Early embryo arrest is a common phenomenon. It is estimated that about 40%–70% of human embryos are arrested at early developmental stages. However, the exact mechanism remains largely uncertain. Embryos can be investigated in vitro by way of the development of in vitro fertilization/intracytoplasmic sperm injection. In addition to iatrogenic factors related to abnormal oocyte/embryo development, multiple gene mutations have been found to be involved in such phenotypes. Based on the knowledge of known etiological factors, several More >

AMOURA M. ABOU-EL-NAGA¹, SHAKER A. MOUSA², FAYEZ ALTHOBAITI³, EMAN FAYAD^3,*, ENGY S. FAHIM¹

BIOCELL, Vol.46, No.2, pp. 535-545, 2022, DOI:10.32604/biocell.2022.017739 - 20 October 2021

Abstract Testicular damage is one of the most hazardous effects as it’s associated with azoospermia. Busulfan (Bu) is a highly toxic chemotherapeutic drug that affects testis. Thirty male Swiss albino mice divided into six groups of 5 animals each. Control (oral 0.9% saline daily for 75 days); Mel (20 mg/kg/day orally for 30 days); ZnO NPs (5 mg/kg/day i.p. for 30 days); BU (single i.p. injection of 40 mg/kg and then left for 45 days); BU + Mel (single 40 mg/kg dose of BU and left for 45 days followed by 20 mg/kg/day Mel for 30 More >

Kentaro Mori^1,*, Kotaro Kitaya², Tomomoto Ishikawa², Yutaka Hata³

Intelligent Automation & Soft Computing, Vol.29, No.2, pp. 335-352, 2021, DOI:10.32604/iasc.2021.01010 - 16 June 2021

Abstract In infertility treatment, it is required to improve a success rate of the treatment. A purpose of this study is to develop a prediction system for pregnancy outcomes using ultrasonic images. In infertility treatment, it is typical to evaluate the endometrial shape by using ultrasonic images. The convolutional neural network (CNN) system developed in the current study predicted pregnancy outcome by velocity information. The velocity information has a movement feature of uterine. It is known that a uterine movement is deep related to infertility. Experiments compared the velocity-based and shape-based systems. The shape-based systems predict… More >