Figure 3.

Quantitative evaluation (copies/μL) of gene expression in large OLCs and small cells, both Ddx4⁺ (QuantaSoft Software). In large OLCs from the non-menopausal and menopausal samples, 2 and 2.6 copies/μL of growth differentiation factor (GDF-9) and 1.2 and 1.5 copies/μL of synaptoneal complex protein 3 (SYCP3), respectively, were detected. By contrast, in small, immature cells from both non-menopausal and menopausal women, no expression of GDF-9 and SYCP3 was found, whereas 5.1 and 5.0 copies/μL of the developmental pluripotency-associated protein 3 (DPPA3) gene were identified. This marker is predominantly expressed in early differentiation stages of the oogonial cell lineage. These results suggested that large OLCs were molecularly associable to mature oocytes, whereas the small cells remained in their primordial differentiation stage of stem cells.