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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2011 Mar 1.
Published in final edited form as: Nat Chem Biol. 2010 Aug 8;6(9):674–681. doi: 10.1038/nchembio.419

Figure 6. Summary of results.

Figure 6

Normal maturation of fully-grown oocytes begins with the progression of an immature, germinal vesicle (GV) stage oocyte to a mature, metaphase II (MII)-arrested oocyte. Fertilization triggers the completion of meiosis and the first mitotic division results in the two-cell embryo, which will in turn develop into a blastocyst. Induction of zinc insufficiency during meiotic maturation results in oocytes that are prematurely arrested in meiotic telophase. Fertilization of these oocytes results in embryos that experience an extended pronuclear stage and impaired viability. This can be ameliorated with zinc supplementation prior to the establishment of telophase arrest. Simply returning zinc-insufficient oocytes to a zinc-replete environment triggers parthenogenetic activation in the absence of any other stimulus, leading to approximately two rounds of division before the parthenotes are no longer viable.