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A Mechanism for Ovulation Number Control

Every menstrual cycle, many follicles begin to develop but only a specific number ovulate. This ovulation number determines how many offspring are produced per litter, and differs between species. The physiological mechanism that controls ovulation number is unknown; a class of mathematical models c...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Shilo, Michal, Mayo, Avi, Alon, Uri
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9329923/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35909517
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fendo.2022.816967
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author Shilo, Michal
Mayo, Avi
Alon, Uri
author_facet Shilo, Michal
Mayo, Avi
Alon, Uri
author_sort Shilo, Michal
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description Every menstrual cycle, many follicles begin to develop but only a specific number ovulate. This ovulation number determines how many offspring are produced per litter, and differs between species. The physiological mechanism that controls ovulation number is unknown; a class of mathematical models can explain it, but these models have no physiological basis. Here, we suggest a physiological mechanism for ovulation number control, which enables selection of a specific number of follicles out of many, and analyze it in a mathematical model of follicular growth. The mechanism is based on a signal, intra-follicular androgen concentration, that measures follicle size relative to the other follicles. This signal has a biphasic effect, suppressing follicles that are too large or too small compared to others. The ovulation number is determined by the androgen inhibitory thresholds. The model has a scaling symmetry that explains why the dominant follicles grow linearly with time, as observed in human ultrasound data. This approach also explains how chronic hyperandrogenism disrupts ovulation in polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS), a leading cause of infertility. We propose specific experiments for testing the proposed mechanism.
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spelling pubmed-93299232022-07-29 A Mechanism for Ovulation Number Control Shilo, Michal Mayo, Avi Alon, Uri Front Endocrinol (Lausanne) Endocrinology Every menstrual cycle, many follicles begin to develop but only a specific number ovulate. This ovulation number determines how many offspring are produced per litter, and differs between species. The physiological mechanism that controls ovulation number is unknown; a class of mathematical models can explain it, but these models have no physiological basis. Here, we suggest a physiological mechanism for ovulation number control, which enables selection of a specific number of follicles out of many, and analyze it in a mathematical model of follicular growth. The mechanism is based on a signal, intra-follicular androgen concentration, that measures follicle size relative to the other follicles. This signal has a biphasic effect, suppressing follicles that are too large or too small compared to others. The ovulation number is determined by the androgen inhibitory thresholds. The model has a scaling symmetry that explains why the dominant follicles grow linearly with time, as observed in human ultrasound data. This approach also explains how chronic hyperandrogenism disrupts ovulation in polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS), a leading cause of infertility. We propose specific experiments for testing the proposed mechanism. Frontiers Media S.A. 2022-07-14 /pmc/articles/PMC9329923/ /pubmed/35909517 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fendo.2022.816967 Text en Copyright © 2022 Shilo, Mayo and Alon https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Endocrinology
Shilo, Michal
Mayo, Avi
Alon, Uri
A Mechanism for Ovulation Number Control
title A Mechanism for Ovulation Number Control
title_full A Mechanism for Ovulation Number Control
title_fullStr A Mechanism for Ovulation Number Control
title_full_unstemmed A Mechanism for Ovulation Number Control
title_short A Mechanism for Ovulation Number Control
title_sort mechanism for ovulation number control
topic Endocrinology
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9329923/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35909517
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fendo.2022.816967
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