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. 2014 May 15;9(5):e97324. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0097324

Figure 1. ΔN-Zfp36l2 oocytes remain arrested at the germinal vesicle stage.

Figure 1

Cumulus oophorus complexes (COCs) were allowed to mature ex vivo. After 20 hours, the oocytes were denuded by pipetting and were morphologically scored as immature (germinal vesicle, GV) or mature (germinal vesicle breakdown, GVBD) using a stereomicroscope. (A) Progression of oocyte maturation. Bars are means ± SD (n = 6). (B) Representative images of live WT and ΔN-Zfp36l2 oocytes. Left panel, intact COCs (40X); center panel, denuded oocytes (80X); right panel, confocal images (40X) of ex vivo matured DAPI stained. (C) Quantification of Zfp36l2 mRNA during oocyte maturation. Total RNA was isolated from cumulus cells, immature (GV) and mature (GVBD) oocytes from heterozygous (Htz) and ΔN-Zfp36l2 mice after ex vivo maturation; Zfp36l2 mRNA expression levels were evaluated by real-time PCR (TaqMan) and normalized to GAPDH. Bars are means ± SD of four independent biological experiments, each in duplicate. (D) Zfp36l2 mRNA levels in immature oocytes were arbitrarily set as 100%, and the mRNA values in mature oocytes were calculated as percentages of the values found in immature oocytes. ‘p’ values were obtained from Student's t-test. ***p<0.001.