Vol.30 No.3 (2008 June): 352-356

Histological Change during Fetal Pig Ovarigenesis

Zhi-Jun Cheng, Yong Tao*, Xiao-Yong Zhang

(College of Animal Science and Technology, Anhui Agricultural University, Hefei 230036, China)

Abstract Ovarigenesis is the first but one of the most important events in mammalian reproduction, and it is almost accomplished for offspring before delivery. Generally, it consists of quite a few physiological activities, such as primordial germ cells (PGCs) proliferation and differentiation, primordial ovary and sex cord formation, oogonia proliferation, differentiation and apoptosis, and primordial follicle formation, development and atresia. Deep understanding in porcine ovarigenesis is of the great importance in livestock reproduction and even human reproductive clinics. By now, only a few reports about fetal pig ovary development have been seen, but systematic realization for porcine ovarigenesis is still needed. Based on the previous studies, this review focuses on the histological change during porcine ovarigenesis.

Key words pig; fetus; ovarigenesis; histology

Received: December 14, 2007 Accepted: February 22, 2008
This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No.30600432) and the Anhui Distinguished Youth Sci-Tech Project (No.06041081)
*Corresponding author. Tel: 86-551-5782488, E-mail: apieceofgrass@163.com