Table 1 Predicted reproductive outcomes upon assisted reproductive technology (ART) treatment by measuring telomere length and telomerase activity in human oocyte, polar body, blastomere, cumulus cells, granulosa cells, and luteinized granulosa cells. IVF, in vitro fertilization; qPCR, quantitative polymerase chain reaction; Q-FISH, quantitative fluorescence in situ hybridization; TRAP, telomere repeat amplification protocol; TRF, telomere restriction fragment
Analyzed sample | Parameter | Method | Predicted outcomes | References | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Oocyte | Telomere length ↓ | Q-FISH | ➢ Cytoplasmic fragmentation in day 3 embryo ↑ ➢ Apoptosis in day 3 embryo ↑ | Keefe et al. 2005 [126] | |
FISH | ➢ Pregnancy rate ↓ | Keefe et al. 2007 [69] | |||
Polar body | qPCR | ➢ Aneuploidy rate ↑ | Treff et al. 2011 [127] | ||
Blastomere | |||||
Cumulus cells | Telomere length ↑ | qPCR | ➢ Rate of competent oocytes ↑ ➢ Embryo quality proportion ↑ | Cheng et al. 2013 [128] | |
Lymphocytes | Telomere length ↓ | qPCR | ➢ Number of aneuploid embryos ↑ | Hanson et al. 2021 [122] | |
➢ Idiopathic recurrent pregnancy loss ↑ | Thilagavathi et al. 2013 [129] | ||||
➢ Fertility problems ↑ ➢ IVF application rate ↑ | Czamanski-Cohen et al. 2015 [130] | ||||
Telomere length ↑ | TRF | ➢ Oocyte quality rate ↑ | Michaeli et al. 2022 [117] | ||
Granulosa cells | Telomere length ↑ | qPCR | ➢ Aneuploidy rate ↓ | Yu et al. 2022 [131] | |
Telomerase activity ↑ | TRAP | ➢ Pregnancy rate ↑ | Wang et al. 2014 [132] | ||
Luteinized granulosa cells | Mathematical model | ➢ Clinical outcomes of ART treatment ↑ | Portillo et al. 2019 [133] | ||