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. 2019 Feb 4;9:1262. doi: 10.1038/s41598-018-37766-2

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© The Author(s) 2019

Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.

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Cumulus cells send numerous projections through the zona pellucida. (A) Schematic of a mouse antral follicle. Black square represents area magnified in (A’). (A’) Schematic of several cumulus cells that send transzonal projections (TZPs) through the zona pellucida to connect to the oocyte. Cumulus cell bodies can be adjacent to or displaced from the zona pellucida. (B) SEM image of a cross-section through cumulus cells, zona pellucida (ZP, outlined by dashed lines), and oocyte of an antral follicle. Video 1 shows 202 serial sections of this area and highlights a cumulus cell with all of its projections. Scale bar, 5 μm. (B’) High-magnification of a region in the zona pellucida showing several TZPs in cross-section imaged by SEM. Scale bar, 1 μm. (C) Reconstruction of every TZP sent by three neighboring cumulus cells, each shown in a different color. TZPs were segmented from 405 serial electron micrographs, encompassing a volume of 22.5 × 6.7 × 18.2 μm (x, y, z). ZP, zona pellucida.