Embryonic diapause in humans: time to consider?

Reproductive Biology and Endocrinology

Hypothesis

Pasqualino Loi¹  Grazyna E Ptak²  Jacek A Modlinski³ 

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

关键词: Embryo;    Delayed implantation;    Embryonic diapause;   

DOI  :  10.1186/1477-7827-11-92

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

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

BackgroundWhen 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 hypothesisRecently, 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 hypothesisIn 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 hypothesisSupport for our hypothesis would require revision of obstetric interventions routinely performed when a human pregnancy extends beyond the due date.

【 授权许可】

CC BY   
© Ptak et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. 2013