What importance do donors and recipients attribute to the nuclear DNA-related genetic heritage of oocyte donation?

Study Question: How do oocyte donors and recipients perceive the genetic link related to the transfer of nuclear DNA between donors and offspring?

Summary Answer: Whether they are donors or recipients, individuals attach great importance to the transmission of their genetic heritage, since 94.5% would opt for the pronuclear transfer method to preserve this genetic link in the context of oocyte donation.

What Is Known Already: Since 1983, the use of oocyte donation has increased worldwide.

The value of diagnostic hysteroscopy before operative hysteroscopy for suspected abnormal intrauterine findings.

Study Objective: To evaluate the accuracy of diagnostic office hysteroscopy in the detection of abnormal uterine findings in symptomatic and asymptomatic patients and compare it with the accuracy of operative hysteroscopy.

Design: A retrospective analysis of all women after operative hysteroscopy between 2010 and 2012 in our institution (Canadian Task Force classification II-2).

Setting: The department of gynecology in a tertiary referral medical center.

Pressure versus temperature unfolding of ribonuclease A: an FTIR spectroscopic characterization of 10 variants at the carboxy-terminal site.

FTIR spectroscopy was used to characterize and compare the temperature- and pressure-induced unfolding of ribonuclease A and a set of its variants engineered in a hydrophobic region of the C-terminal part of the molecule postulated as a CFIS. The results show for all the ribonucleases investigated, a cooperative, two-state, reversible unfolding transition using both pressure and temperature. The relative stabilities, among the different sites and different variants at the same site, monitored either through the changes in the position of the maximum of the amide I' band and the tyrosine band, or the maximum of the band assigned to the beta-sheet structure, corroborate the results of a previous study using fourth-derivative UV absorbance spectroscopy.

Pressure-temperature gelatinization phase diagram of starch: An in situ Fourier transform infrared study.

The gelatinization of rice starch is reported as a function of temperature and pressure from the changes in the ir spectrum. The diagram that is observed is reminiscent of those obtained for the denaturation of proteins and the phase separation observed from the cloud point for several water soluble synthetic polymers. It is proposed that the reentrant shape of the diagram for starch is not only due to hydrogen bonding but also to the imperfect packing of amylose and amylopectin chains in the starch granule.

Pressure effect on the temperature-induced unfolding and tendency to aggregate of myoglobin.

This work demonstrates that pressure-induced partially unfolded states play a very important role in the aggregation of proteins. The high-pressure unfolding of horse heart metmyoglobin results in an intermediate form that shows a strong tendency to aggregate after pressure release. These aggregates are similar to those that are usually observed upon temperature denaturation.