Murder on the Ovarian Express: A Tale of Non-Autonomous Cell Death in the Ovary

Overview

Journal Cells

Publisher MDPI

Specialties Biochemistry
Biophysics
Cell Biology
Molecular Biology

Date 2021 Jul 2

PMID 34200604

Citations 13

Authors

Diane Patricia Vig Lebo

Kimberly McCall

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Throughout oogenesis, egg chambers traverse the fine line between survival and death. After surviving the ten early and middle stages of oogenesis, egg chambers drastically change their size and structure to produce fully developed oocytes. The development of an oocyte comes at a cost, the price is the lives of the oocyte's 15 siblings, the nurse cells. These nurse cells do not die of their own accord. Their death is dependent upon their neighbors-the stretch follicle cells. Stretch follicle cells are nonprofessional phagocytes that spend the final stages of oogenesis surrounding the nurse cells and subsequently forcing the nurse cells to give up everything for the sake of the oocyte. In this review, we provide an overview of cell death in the ovary, with a focus on recent findings concerning this phagocyte-dependent non-autonomous cell death.

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