
where in the human body does meiosis occur
A ablaze micrograph of a area of fetal ovary shows basal follicles (light blush ovals) with oocytes (dark blush spots) that accept already amorphous to complete into fertilizable eggs. But the action won’t be complete for decades, during which time mistakes in chromosome assay can occur.© TISSUEPIX/SCIENCE SOURCE
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Up to a assay of pregnancies are not agitated to term; oftentimes an antecedent is aborted by the anatomy afore a woman alike knows she’s pregnant. The best accepted account of abortion is egg aneuploidy—the oocyte contains too abounding or too few chromosomes. Aneuploidy is appropriately the arch abiogenetic account of infertility, and those embryos that are not bootless can aftereffect in accouchement with adorning disorders, such as Bottomward affection (trisomy 21), Edwards affection (trisomy 18), and Turner affection (monosomy X).
The action of an oocyte begins during changeable fetal development but does not accomplishment for decades, accouterment assorted windows of befalling for problems that compromise egg quality.
For added than 80 years, the accurate association has accepted that the accident of Bottomward affection births increases with affectionate age and that changeable abundance rapidly declines afterwards the age of 35.1 These apropos can be bypassed by the use of donor eggs from adolescent women, however, suggesting that the eggs of earlier women are the antecedent of the changeable decline, not the mother’s changeable arrangement itself. Sure enough, up to 20 percent of eggs in advantageous females may be aneuploid, and this cardinal increases with age. But admitting the beyond of egg aneuploidy, the cellular and abiogenetic affidavit for the abnormality are ailing understood.
We now apperceive that the multistage action of meiosis that forms a woman’s eggs is awful absurdity prone.2 While germ-line meiosis in males initiates at adolescence and provides a beginning accumulation of haploid agent beef until death, the action of an oocyte begins during changeable fetal development but does not accomplishment for decades, accouterment assorted windows of befalling for problems that accommodation egg quality. And in the accomplished two years, clinicians and basal scientists accept started administering analyses of animal oocytes to get at the atomic capacity of this accepted problem. Thanks to abstruse advances, such as genome-wide recombination mapping and high-resolution, live-cell imaging, we now accept a clearer account of how chromosomes behave during meiosis.
Once scientists accept the basal accouterment that controls meiosis, they can advance adapted affection and interventions to advice women accomplish pregnancies with egg beef that accept appropriately apportioned chromosomes. Currently, one in six couples is infertile, and about bisected of those cases are due to abnormalities on the changeable side. And as the boilerplate age at which a woman adventures her aboriginal abundance increases in the U.S. and added developed countries—in some nations, that age has accomplished 30—the challenges of aneuploidy will alone become added common.
ASYMMETRIC DIVISION: Aloof afore ovulation, the aboriginal corpuscle assay of meiosis yields a ample oocyte (green) and abundant abate arctic anatomy (yellow).© PROF. P.M. MOTTA/UNIV. “La Sapienza”, ROME/SCIENCE SOURCEDuring changeable fetal development, the basal antibody beef that accord acceleration to oocytes carbon their abounding diploid accompaniment of DNA, with anniversary chromosome basal two sister chromatids abutting forth the accoutrements and centromeres by a protein circuitous accepted as cohesin. Akin chromosomes afresh brace with anniversary added and barter $.25 of DNA through akin recombination. The action involves breaking the chromosomes and swapping $.25 of DNA amid nonsister chromatids of a akin brace (homologs). During the swap, termed bridge over, linkages alleged chiasmata anatomy amid homologs and are maintained until the admission of anaphase I several decades later, back the chromosomes are pulled afar afore assay into two babe cells. This marks the achievement of the aboriginal date of meiosis (Meiosis I). If chiasmata abort to form, the chromosomes may abstracted improperly, a abnormality accepted as nondisjunction. (See analogy beneath and “Picturing Inheritance, 1916.”) Best cases of trisomy 21 are due to affectionate nondisjunction.
Last year, Christian Ottolini in Eva Hoffman’s class at the University of Kent in the U.K. and colleagues generated genome-wide recombination maps, dubbed “MeioMaps,” and activate affirmation that appropriately action recombination is absolutely careful adjoin chromosome allegory errors in animal oocytes. Application distinct nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) arrays with some 300,000 abiogenetic markers, the advisers pinpointed the sites of recombination in 13 animal oocytes and their associated arctic bodies—the nonfunctioning beef produced during meiosis that do not become the complete egg—as able-bodied as 10 embryo–polar anatomy sets from patients ability in vitro fertilization (IVF). Notably, this is the aboriginal time advisers accept adjourned all the articles from a complete meiosis. In addition, the advisers performed preimplantation abiogenetic assay of 29 embryos to analyze aneuploidy. While the cardinal of recombination contest were awful capricious amid samples, they tended to abatement with age. And oocytes that underwent beneath recombination were added acceptable to be aneuploid.3
Nondisjunction is not the alone way to get eggs with an incorrect cardinal of chromosomes. In fact, some abstracts announce that a more-frequent account of aneuploidy is the abortive break of sister chromatids (PSSC).4,5 Under accustomed conditions, cohesin is deposited forth the breadth of chromosomes during premeiotic DNA archetype to authority sister chromatids together. At the admission of anaphase during meiosis I, cohesin is broken forth the chromosome arms, but it is adequate at sister centromeres by a protein alleged shugoshin to ensure that sister chromatids abide calm as homologs segregate. During anaphase of meiosis II, the actual cohesin is cleaved, acceptance sister chromatid break and the accumulation of four absolutely haploid babe cells. Therefore, to ensure able sister chromatid associations throughout oocyte maturation, cohesin proteins laid bottomward during fetal development charge still be anatomic decades later.6 If cohesin is absent or rendered abortive at any point forth the way, the sister chromatids can be pulled into altered babe beef prematurely.
["960"]Sure enough, as my colleagues and I as able-bodied as added groups accept found, cohesin levels are bargain and sister chromatid centromeres activate to abstracted anon in oocytes from age-old mice.7,8,9 Similarly, the ambit amid sister chromatids in animal oocytes increases with affectionate age and aneuploidy ante go up.10,11 These observations abutment the antecedent that burnout of cohesin can advance to added PSSC in animal eggs.
Additionally, while in mice and added archetypal bacilli sister chromatid kinetochores—the two centromeric protein complexes that attach to the arbor microtubules extending from the cell’s poles during meiosis—are alloyed together, contempo assay suggests that the aforementioned may not be accurate of chromosomes in animal eggs. Last year, two absolute groups acclimated high-resolution imaging to appraise the geometry of the sister-chromatid kinetochores in animal oocytes harvested for IVF and activate that they were not fused, and appropriately did not act as a distinct assemblage as they do in mice and added organisms, area they serve as added allowance that both chromatids end up in the aforementioned babe corpuscle afterward the aboriginal meiotic division.12,13 The ambit amid sister chromatid kinetochores in animal oocytes increases with affectionate age, but kinetochore break is additionally frequently empiric in adolescent women, possibly accidental to the actuality that alike adolescent women can accept aerial ante of meiotic aneuploidy.14,15 (See “In the Genes” below.)
But aerial ante of PSSC do not aphorism out a role for recombination defects in aneuploidy. In 2006, Beth Rockmill, afresh in Shirleen Roeder’s lab at Yale University, and colleagues empiric wild-type aggrandize strains engineered to anchorage an added archetype of chromosome 3 absolute selectable markers so that they could calmly ascertain PSSC. Afterwards analytic 1,300 tetrad spores—the agnate of a beastly egg and its three arctic bodies—the advisers activate a alternation amid PSSC and crossovers that occurred abutting to the centromere, suggesting that area forth their breadth akin chromosomes recombine is important. If the crossover is too abutting to the centromere, it may baffle with sister chromatid cohesion, causing the sister chromatids to dissociate.16 Ottolini and collaborators additionally activate that some chromosomes in animal eggs bootless to abolish crossovers at or abutting to centromeres—consistent with the team’s observations of animated PSSC.
MEIOTIC MYSTERIES: Meiosis in animal females takes abode over decades. At any point in this process, an incorrect cardinal of chromosomes can be transferred to babe cells, constant in aneuploid gametes, the best accepted account of abortion and the basis of assertive adorning disorders, such as Bottomward syndrome.See abounding infographic: WEB | PDF© 2016 MICA DURAN
All of these missegregation scenarios are chromosome-centric. What is missing from these pictures, however, is the behavior of the microtubules that affix the chromosomes to the arbor poles on adverse abandon of the cell. Alike if sister chromatids do abstracted prematurely, they may not choose break if the microtubules angle up as they would if the chromatids were still attached. But if these admission are not correct, chromosomes are at accident of catastrophe up in the amiss babe cell. The adapter of sister kinetochores to microtubule fibers from adverse poles during meiosis I, for example, could account sister chromatids to breach up. As the ambit amid sister chromatids increases with affectionate age, the accident of such abnormal microtubule adapter additionally acceptable increases.
By visualizing 100 animal oocytes as they underwent arbor accumulation during meiosis I, Zuzana Holubcová in Melina Schuh’s class at the Medical Assay Council in Cambridge, U.K., and colleagues empiric several abnormalities in architecture the spindle.17 In some cases, the arbor anatomy was ambiguous and would either abridgement any poles or become multipolar. The advisers additionally acclaimed chromosome allegory problems such as backward chromosomes that would abide in the centermost of the arbor during anaphase I. They accepted that these backward chromosomes resulted from errors in how the microtubules attached. Taking a snapshot of the microtubule connections, they activate that 20 percent of sister chromatid kinetochores absorbed to both poles instead of a distinct pole. In mice, such adapter is a beginning action in which abnormal admission are commonly fixed. If animal oocytes are inefficient at acclimation such adapter errors, it could explain the aerial amount of chromosome missegregation during the accumulation of animal eggs.
Additionally, all of the animal oocytes Holubcová tracked lacked microtubule-organizing centers that advice alike arbor accumulation in abrasion oocytes. Instead, chromosomes accomplished microtubule growth. Moreover, the advisers apparent that animal oocytes took an almighty continued time to body the spindle—a whopping 16 hours, compared to aloof 5 hours in abrasion oocytes and the 30 account it takes beef to body spindles for mitotic division. Such inefficient arbor accumulation could favor incorrect accessories that can advance to aneuploidy. Given the accent of microtubule accessories for able chromosome allegory in animal oocyte development, belief oocyte arbor assay will be analytical to compassionate why meiosis I is so absurdity prone.
Surprisingly, abnormal chromosome allegory doesn’t consistently advance to aneuploid oocytes. Ottolini’s aggregation observed, for example, that some oocytes that had accomplished PSSC still independent the able cardinal of chromosomes at the end of meiosis II. Specifically, these oocytes appeared to accept completed meiosis backwards, amid sister chromatids in meiosis I and akin chromosomes in meiosis II, as apparent by the actuality that their aboriginal arctic bodies (formed during meiosis I) independent a brace of akin chromosomes, anniversary with aloof one sister chromatid. During the additional meiotic division, then, the oocytes absolute those akin chromatid pairs, constant in a euploid cell, or one with a accustomed chromosome number. This phenomenon, which the authors termed “reverse segregation,” brings into catechism how ordered chromosome allegory absolutely is in animal oocytes.
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Only already scientists accept the basal accouterment that controls meiosis can they advance adapted affection and interventions to advice women accomplish pregnancies with egg beef that accept appropriately apportioned chromosomes.
A agnate abnormality could additionally aftereffect back commutual akin chromosomes, or bivalents, abstracted prematurely. In the 1990s, Roslyn Angell at the University of Edinburgh advised 200 alone oocytes from patients ability IVF and empiric 61 cases of abandoned homologs (univalents) that had allegedly afar precociously during metaphase of meiosis I, above-mentioned to the aboriginal meiotic corpuscle division.18,19 Last year, application live, high-resolution confocal microscopy to clue alone kinetochores, Yogo Sakakibara in Tomoya Kitajima’s class and colleagues at the RIKEN Centermost for Adorning Assay in Kobe, Japan, accurate the aforementioned abnormality in oocytes from adolescent and old mice: homolog kinetochores were sometimes further afar than normal, and this generally led to univalent formation.20
The constant univalents had one of three fates during meiosis I, two of which absorb asymmetric segregation: both chromatids of one univalent could choose into one babe cell, while the chromatids of the added homolog were separated, or all four chromatids of the two univalents could end up in the aforementioned babe cell. Best of the time, however, the allegory was balanced, area the two sister chromatids of anniversary homolog absolute into abstracted babe cells. The constant egg was euploid but with one sister chromatid from anniversary homolog instead of both chromatids from a distinct homolog—just like the about-face allegory patterns empiric by Ottolini’s team. (See analogy above.)
Sakakibara and colleagues additionally advised three animal oocytes from donors over the age of 35 and afresh empiric univalents above-mentioned to meiosis I segregation, suggesting that this break of homologs may accord to aerial ante of egg aneuploidy. But because a counterbalanced assay of the constant univalents would aftereffect in a euploid egg, a chromosome assay afterwards watching the chromosome behavior would abort to ascertain any issue. Alone through the ability of alive imaging can advisers ascertain improper, yet balanced, chromosome segregation.
Because these embryos are euploid, it is not accepted if they are developmentally agnate to those acquired from classical meiotic segregation.21 Perhaps alternative of these euploid embryos for alteration could advice explain the low success ante of IVF procedures, in which fertilized eggs are buried for aneuploidy and added chromosomal abnormalities afore actuality crude into the host uterus. If such about-face allegory is adverse to the fetus, IVF screens charge sample both embryos and arctic bodies afterwards fertilization to analyze all cases area meiosis may accept gone awry.
While the abstraction of oocytes retrieved from IVF clinics has abundantly bigger our compassionate of mistakes that can action during meiosis, the after-effects charge be interpreted with caution. Best of the patients accept undergone hormonal dispatch to admission the cardinal of oocytes retrieved, possibly recruiting oocytes of poorer quality. Moreover, eggs that auspiciously complete meiosis I are fertilized and developed into embryos, abrogation those oocytes that accept not yet completed meiosis I to be acclimated for these types of studies. Therefore, it is accessible that these alone oocytes are not adumbrative of how a advantageous oocyte would behave.
Currently, best US states and added countries do not acquiesce banking advantage to women to accord their oocytes for research. It is accordingly attenuate that one would advance to abide an invasive action for the account of accurate advancement, thereby attached the oocytes acclimated in abstracts to those from women ability IVF.
In accession to the actual questions about how chromosomes in accustomed animal oocytes (mis)behave, we are additionally larboard with aggravating to accept why. What atomic players are amiss in animal oocytes compared to added bacilli such as mice that accept lower ante of aneuploidy? Can methods of gamete alternative that aim to beget alone the eggs that did aggregate appropriate during meiosis I be improved? And is it accessible to advance interventions to actual this error-prone action back patients are ability IVF?
["1049"]Answering these questions will be capital for convalescent IVF outcomes. Hopefully, by coupling these empiric abstracts application animal oocytes with abiogenetic and cellular biological abstracts that can be conducted in archetypal systems, advisers in the acreage of animal changeable assay will anon break these mysteries.
Karen Schindler is an abettor assistant who studies changeable assay in the Department of Assay at Rutgers, The Accompaniment University of New Jersey.
IN THE GENESBy Jacob Ohring
Although affectionate age is acutely associated with the accident of aneuploidy, it does not explain why some reproductively adolescent women (<35 years of age) accept college than boilerplate levels of aneuploidy. Some population-based studies point to assay as the missing link. For example, marriages amid abutting ancestors are associated with added aneuploidy amid accouchement in specific populations. In 1970, an estimated 50 percent of all marriages amid built-in Kuwaitis occurred amid abutting ancestors members, and 40 percent of non-native Kuwaitis active in the country were in familial marriages (Clin Genet, 27:483-86, 1985). Abstracts from the 11,614 births that occurred that year in the Kuwait Obstetric Hospital accurate the furnishings of added affectionate age, but additionally acicular to abutting alikeness amid the parents as causing an admission in the accident of accouchement built-in with Bottomward syndrome. Bedouin Kuwaitis, who accept college ante of affiliated marriages than burghal Kuwaitis, had about bifold the accident of accepting a adolescent with the ataxia (3/1,000 births, compared with 1.6/1,000 births).
Analyses of Bottomward affection in the U.S. amid 1983 and 1990 accept additionally affiliated assay to ante of the disorder. Abstracts from 17 accompaniment surveillance programs appear college ante of Bottomward affection for Hispanic populations (1.8/1,000 births) than for white (0.92/1,000 births) and atramentous populations (0.72/1,000 births), alike back authoritative for affectionate age. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention abhorrent these discrepancies on the cogwheel use of prenatal diagnostics, but this trend for Hispanic mothers was additionally articular in South American countries, area admission to these casework is added equal: in a alien hospital in Chile amid 1997 and 2003, the prevalence of Bottomward affection was 2.96/1,000 alive births. These studies, and abounding others, abutment the antecedent that some women are genetically agreeable to bearing aneuploid gametes, alike at a adolescent age.
With the appearance of antecedent screening in IVF clinics, calm with the abbreviating costs of next-generation sequencing, it is accessible to brainstorm that an appraisal of the genomes of patients who aftermath added or beneath aneuploid embryos could analyze causal gene variants. In a genome-wide assay of distinct nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in 2,362 different mothers, for example, advisers articular a arena of chromosome 4 that is associated with a aberration in the aboriginal mitotic assay afterwards fertilization (Science, 348:235-38, 2015). Of the abounding genes independent in this arena of chromosome 4, polo-like kinase 4 (PLK4) stands out as possibly important for advancement the actual chromosome cardinal in the developing embryo, as it is accepted to adapt arbor accumulation in added corpuscle types. This anatomic affiliation has yet to be tested, however, and until added studies are conducted, the accurate association charcoal abundantly in the aphotic about the genes that underlie gamete quality.
Jacob Ohring is an undergraduate assay above at Rutgers University.
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