Team

Research interest

Journeay to the center of the follicle

The main focus of our research is oocyte competency, which essentially depends on its accompanying follicle. Our genomic tools enable the discovery and study of markers for good follicles in both bovine and human in order to improve procedures, especially in vitro fertilization.

It appears that the mammalian ovary can determine whether the oocyte will be a good one. It now also appears that endogenous and exogenous (injection) hormones can affect follicular quality and incidentally that of the oocyte. The same would be true of environmental conditions such as the mother’s nutrition or her metabolic status. We are interested in understanding who genes react to these conditions and how the ovary can then modify the epigenomic signature of the oocyte to transmit this information.

 

Our studies are follow up by transcriptome (the set of genes express in a tissue) and epigenome (the packaging of each gene in a tissue) analyses in early bovine embryos using the new EmbryoGENE platform. These analyses enable us to measure the impact of all of the possible manipulation on an embryo, from simple culture to cloning or transgenesis. 

Expertise

Granulosa cells Cumulus cells Oocyte competence Competence markers Transcriptomics Embryo Epigenetics Genomics Ovary Ovule