Sucrose Effect on Follicular Survival Rate and Apoptosis Incidence in Rat Ovarian Tissue after Vitrification

the aim of this study was to evaluate the effect of sucrose on follicular survival rate and the incidence of apoptosis in rat ovarian tissue following vitrification.

Ovaries of approximately 5-week-old female Wistar rats were divided randomly into three groups: control (non-vitrified), VI (Ethylene Glycol + Dimethyl Sulfoxide) and VII (EG + DMSO + 0.25 mol/lit sucrose). Vitrified-warmed samples were incubated for approximately 30 minutes and fixed in Bouin’s fixative. The samples were serially sectioned and stained either with H&E or immunohistochemistry kit of anti-active and a pro-caspase-3 kit.

Data analysis showed that the rate of growing follicles that survived, with the exception of primordial follicles, was comparable between the vitrified-warmed and control samples. Morphologically healthy primordial follicles showed significant reductions in all vitrification groups compared to the control, however this rate was not significant between the vitrification groups. In comparison with healthy follicles, there were significantly more dead follicles in the vitrification groups than the control group. In addition the apoptotic follicles increased significantly after vitrification, with the exception of the antral follicles. Although the number of apoptotic follicles was similar between both vitrification groups, however there were significantly more preantral apoptotic follicles in the VII group compared to the VI and control groups.

According to these results, the presence or absence of sucrose has no significant effect on the preservation of primordial and primary follicles which are important for transplantation.