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Glucose and redox metabolism in meiotically blocked in vitro grown mouse antral follicles

  • Reproductive physiology and disease
  • Published:
Journal of Assisted Reproduction and Genetics Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Purpose

Glucose and redox metabolism characterization in mouse antral follicles with meiotically blocked oocytes, after in vitro follicle culture (IFC) from the early secondary stage.

Methods

Following IFC (10 days), oocytes, corresponding cumulus (CC), and granulosa cells (GC) were collected from antral follicles: (i) on day 9—immature, germinal vesicle (GV) stage; (ii) on day 10, after hCG/EGF stimulation—mature, metaphase II (MII) stage and meiotically blocked (MB) immature GV stage. The metabolic profiles of all samples (GV, MII, and MB) were compared by measuring changes in metabolites involved in glycolysis, tricarboxylic acid (TCA) cycle, pentose phosphate pathway (PPP), and redox activity via enzymatic spectrophotometric assays in each cell type.

Results

Within MB follicles, GCs drive higher levels of glycolysis and lactic acid fermentation (LAF) while oocytes exert more PPP activity. MB-oocytes had significantly larger diameters compared to day 9 GVs. MB follicles revealed limited metabolic changes in the somatic compartment compared to their GV counterparts (before stimulation). MB-CCs showed increased aconitase and glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase activities with lower malate levels comparted to GV-CCs. MB and MII in vitro grown follicles displayed comparable metabolic profiles, suggesting culture induces metabolic exhaustion regardless of the maturation stage.

Conclusions

Current results suggest that in addition to impaired nuclear maturation, metabolic disruption is present in MB follicles. MB follicles either compensate with high levels of TCA cycle and PPP activities in CCs, or are unable to drive proper levels of aerobic metabolism, which might be due to the current culture conditions.

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Data availability

The data underlying this article will be shared on reasonable request to the corresponding author.

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Funding

This study was funded by Flanders FWO The Excellence of Science (EOS, FWO- F.R.S.-FNRS; G0F3118N) and by the Brazilian funds MCTI (Ministério da Ciência, Tecnologia e Inovações)/CNPq (Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Cientifico e Tecnologico) INCTTM (Instituto Nacional de Ciência e Tecnologia Translacional em Medicina)/CAPES (Coordenaçao de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nivel Superior)/FAPESP (465458/2014-9) and PDSE-CAPES (Programa de Doutorado Sanduiche no Exterior-Coordenaçao de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nivel Superior) 47/2017 (88881.188914/2018-01).

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Follicle Biology Laboratory (FOBI), Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB) Jette Campus, Laarbeeklaan 103, 1090, Brussels, Belgium

    Anamaria-Cristina Herta, Nazli Akin, Katy Billooye, Berta Cava-Cami, Johan Smitz & Ellen Anckaert

  2. Laboratory of Cellular Biochemistry, Department of Biochemistry, ICBS, Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS), (RS), Porto Alegre, 90035003, Brazil

    Lucia von Mengden & Fábio Klamt

  3. Freelance statistician, Brugstraat 107, 3001, Heverlee, Belgium

    Wim Coucke

Authors
  1. Anamaria-Cristina Herta
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  2. Lucia von Mengden
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  3. Nazli Akin
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  6. Berta Cava-Cami
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Contributions

ACH, LVM, NA: designed the experiments, performed the cultures, collected the samples, analyzed and interpreted the data, and prepared the manuscript. WC: performed the statistical analysis for the enzymatic assays. KB: provided help in the cultures and sample collection. BCC: provided technical assistance for enzyme assays. LSC: provided supervision on the data analysis and revised the manuscript. FK, JS, EA: supervised the project and revised the manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Anamaria-Cristina Herta.

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Supplementary information

ESM 1

Supplementary fig. 1 Redox metabolism (A – D) and antioxidant capacity (E – F) were measured in in vitro grown mouse antral follicles via enzymatic assays. Samples from individual cell types (oocytes, GCs, CCs) were collected at GV stage, before the meiotic trigger and 18 hours after hCG/EGF stimulation from meiotically blocked (MB) and successfully matured (MII) antral follicles. Results were obtained from pools of 5 oocytes and corresponding somatic cells, from 3 independent experiments. For each sample type, from all 3 conditions, six biological replicates were measured as single technical replicates. ANOVA with Sidak’s multiple comparison test was performed to detect statistical significance (p<0.05) between the relevant comparisons. (DOCX 62.2 kb)

ESM 2

Supplementary Fig. 2. Glucose and redox metabolism in in vitro grown mouse antral follicles before (A) and after meiotic stimulus (B, C). All 3 cell types perform glycolysis, TCA cycle, PPP, OXPHOS and redox activities at different rates in immature (GV) as well as in both successfully matured (MII) and meiotically blocked (MB) follicles. Granulosa cells (GCs) play a major role in the follicle’s metabolic support prior (A) and after meiotic trigger (B, C). As the main site for lactic acid fermentation (purple circles) and glycolysis (pink circles), after the meiotic trigger, GCs share comparable levels of TCA cycle (orange circles) compared to the oocyte, while the latter is in charge of PPP. Cumulus cells (CCs) display significantly higher PPP and TCA cycle activities with lower malate levels following blocked maturation. No differences were detected in blocked oocytes for any of the metabolic markers after GV and MII stages comparisons. Similar metabolic trends were depicted after blocked (C) and successful (B) meiotic resumption with no significant differences detected between the two. LAF: Lactic Acid Fermentation; OXPHOS: Oxidative Phosphorylation. PPP: Pentose Phosphate Pathway; NADP+: nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide phosphate; SOD: Superoxide Dismutase; GST: Glutathione-S-Transferase; TAC: Total Antioxidant Capacity; SMAC: Small Molecules Antioxidant Capacity. The follicle compartments are color coded (as displayed in 8A): light orange for GCs, purple for CCs and light blue for the oocyte. A and B were adapted from Herta et al. 2022 following the permission by Oxford University press (license number: 5553701022789, obtained on May 21, 2023). (DOCX 9.35 MB)

ESM 3

Supplementary Table 1. Enzymatic assays kits used in this study. (DOCX 29.6 KB)

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Herta, AC., von Mengden, L., Akin, N. et al. Glucose and redox metabolism in meiotically blocked in vitro grown mouse antral follicles. J Assist Reprod Genet 40, 2851–2863 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10815-023-02940-7

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