New Approach to Protecting Ovarian Reserve During Chemotherapy

At birth, every female infant has a stock of quiescent primordial ovarian follicles, which are gradually depleted during the woman's reproductive years. Chemotherapy damages those follicles and can prevent them from activating and ovulating later in life.

A research team has discovered that, in mice, long-term exposure to Müllerian inhibiting substance (MIS) results in complete arrest of follicle development: Ovarian reserve remains stable, and contraception is induced for as long as high blood levels of MIS persist. To determine if supraphysiological levels of MIS would reversibly protect ovarian reserve in young female mice, researchers first exposed the mice to high levels of MIS, either through gene therapy that produced a constant sourc…