Comparison of mitochondrial-related transcriptional levels of TFAM, NRF1 and MT-CO1 genes in single human oocytes at various stages of the oocyte maturation.

["Marefat Ghaffari Novin", "Mehrdad Noruzinia", "Azra Allahveisi", "Aboutaleb Saremi", "Fateme Fadaei Fathabadi", "Reza Mastery Farahani", "Ali Dehghani Fard", "Arash Pooladi", "Ramin Mazaherinezhad Fard", "Elham Yousefian"]

Iranian biomedical journal 2015

Open on PubMed

BACKGROUND: The aim of the current study was to assess the mRNA levels of two mitochondria-related genes, including nuclear-encoded NRF1 (nuclear respiratory factor 1), mitochondrial transcription factor A (TFAM), and mitochondrial-encoded cytochrome c oxidase subunit 1 (MT-CO1) genes in various stages of the human oocyte maturation. METHODS: Oocytes were obtained from nine infertile women with male factor undergoing in vitro fertilization (IVF)/intra-cytoplasmic sperm injection protocol. Mitochondrial-related mRNA levels were performed by single-cell TaqMan real-time PCR. RESULTS: the expression level of the target genes was low at the germinal vesicle stage (P>0.05). Although the mRNA level of NRF1gene remained stable in metaphase I, the mRNA level of TFAM and MT-CO1 increased significantly (P<0.05).In metaphase II, the expression level of all genes increased compared to metaphase I (P<0.05). CONCLUSION: The overexpression levels of NRF1, TFAM, and MT-CO1 genes are related to the oocyte maturation. Therefore, the current study could be used clinically to improve the success rate of IVF.