Embryonic diapause in humans: time to consider?

Reproductive Biology and Endocrinology

Pasqualino Loi²  Jacek A Modlinski¹  Grazyna E Ptak¹ 

[1] Department of Experimental Embryology, Institute of Genetics and Animal Breeding of the Polish Academy of Sciences, Jastrzebiec, Poland;Department of Comparative Biomedical Sciences, University of Teramo, Piazza A. Moro, Teramo 64100, Italy

关键词: Embryonic diapause;    Delayed implantation;    Embryo;   

Others  :  809956
DOI  :  10.1186/1477-7827-11-92

 received in 2013-04-24, accepted in 2013-09-11,  发布年份 2013

【 摘 要 】

Background

When a competent blastocyst stage embryo finds itself in an unreceptive uterus, it delays development. In around one hundred species representing various orders, this delay is known to be reversible, but this phenomenon - termed embryonic diapause (ED) - is not considered a general characteristic of all mammals.

Presentation of the hypothesis

Recently, however, we demonstrated that a non-diapausing species, the sheep, is capable of ED, suggesting the hypothesis that this is in fact an ancestral trait common to all mammals, including humans.

Testing the hypothesis

In spite of the obvious difficulties in testing this idea, we propose a combination of indirect observations on human fertility patients, and direct study of the embryos of non-human primates.

Implications of the hypothesis

Support for our hypothesis would require revision of obstetric interventions routinely performed when a human pregnancy extends beyond the due date.

【 授权许可】

   
2013 Ptak et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd.

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