Publications by authors named "G M Hartshorne"
Aneuploid human eggs (oocytes) are a major cause of infertility, miscarriage, and chromosomal disorders. Such aneuploidies increase greatly as women age, with defective linkages between sister chromatids (cohesion) in meiosis as a common cause. We found that loss of a specific pool of the cohesin protector protein, shugoshin 2 (SGO2), may contribute to this phenomenon.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFHuman beings are made of ~50 trillion cells which arise from serial mitotic divisions of a single cell - the fertilised egg. Remarkably, the early human embryo is often chromosomally abnormal, and many are mosaic, with the karyotype differing from one cell to another. Mosaicism presumably arises from chromosome segregation errors during the early mitotic divisions, although these events have never been visualised in living human embryos.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFDecidual remodelling of midluteal endometrium leads to a short implantation window after which the uterine mucosa either breaks down or is transformed into a robust matrix that accommodates the placenta throughout pregnancy. To gain insights into the underlying mechanisms, we established and characterized endometrial assembloids, consisting of gland-like organoids and primary stromal cells. Single-cell transcriptomics revealed that decidualized assembloids closely resemble midluteal endometrium, harbouring differentiated and senescent subpopulations in both glands and stroma.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFArticle Synopsis
- Decidualizing endometrial stromal cells are crucial for determining how the body responds to an implanting embryo, either leading to menstruation or supporting embryo development.
- New findings indicate that uterine natural killer (uNK) cells, which eliminate unhealthy decidual cells, play a key role in this process.
- The study shows that high molecular weight hyaluronan (HMWHA) can inhibit the killing of these senescent cells by uNK cells, while low molecular weight hyaluronan (LMWHA) does not, suggesting that the interaction between embryos and uNK cells is essential for recognizing healthy versus low-quality embryos during implantation.
Study Question: Can the priorities for future research in infertility be identified?
Summary Answer: The top 10 research priorities for the four areas of male infertility, female and unexplained infertility, medically assisted reproduction and ethics, access and organization of care for people with fertility problems were identified.
What Is Known Already: Many fundamental questions regarding the prevention, management and consequences of infertility remain unanswered. This is a barrier to improving the care received by those people with fertility problems.