生育年龄的女性中有高达15%的人在为了成功怀孕而努力。体外受精(in vitro fertilization , IVF)可以帮助这些女性成为妈妈。但是，即便是IVF也帮不到那些因为卵子不能正常发育成熟而无法怀孕的女性，因为为成熟的卵子时无法受精的。
不过，近日瑞典歌德堡大学的研究人员发现一种叫做Cdk1的分子对于哺乳类生物的卵子成熟具有十分重要的功能。将来，这项发现也许可以提高IVF的成功率，那些因为该原因而无法怀孕的女性可能会得到命运的改变。相关论文发表在Human Molecular Genetics上。
论文的通讯作者Kui Liu教授说：“这是第一个功能性证据证实Cdk1是哺乳类生物卵子成熟的关键分子。如果该发现能转化到临床应用，这有可能提高IVF治疗的成功几率，帮助那些因为卵子不能成熟而无法怀孕的女人”
研究者在特异组织敲除的小鼠上开展研究实验，结果显示，当从小鼠的卵子中去除Cdk1分子后，卵子的成熟过程停止。当该分子被重新加入后，卵子则继续成熟过程。
研究人员称希望能够在人类卵子中开展实验，而该结果有希望在10年内得到临床应用。（生物谷Bioon.com）
doi:10.1093/hmg/dds061
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Cdk1, but not Cdk2, is the sole Cdk that is essential and sufficient to drive resumption of meiosis in mouse oocytes
Deepak Adhikari, Wenjing Zheng, Yan Shen, Nagaraju Gorre, Guillaume Halet, Philipp Kaldis and Kui Liu
Mammalian oocytes are arrested at the prophase of meiosis I during fetal or postnatal development, and the meiosis is resumed by the preovulatory surge of luteinizing hormone (LH). The in vivo functional roles of cyclin-dependent kinases (Cdks) during resumption of meiosis in mammalian oocytes are largely unknown. Previous studies have shown that deletions of Cdk3, Cdk4, or Cdk6 in mice result in viable animals with normal oocyte maturation, indicating that these Cdks are not essential for the meiotic maturation of oocytes. In addition, conventional knockout of Cdk1 and Cdk2 leads to embryonic lethality and postnatal follicular depletion, respectively, making it impossible to study the functions of Cdk1 and Cdk2 in oocyte meiosis. In this study, we generated conditional knockout mice with oocyte-specific deletions of Cdk1 and Cdk2. We showed that the lack of Cdk1, but not of Cdk2, leads to female infertility due to a failure of resumption of meiosis in the oocyte. Re-introduction of Cdk1 mRNA into Cdk1-null oocytes largely resumed meiosis. Thus, Cdk1 is the sole Cdk that is essential and sufficient to drive resumption of meiosis in mouse oocytes. We also found that Cdk1 maintains the phosphorylation status of protein phosphatase 1 (PP1) and lamin A/C in oocytes in order for meiosis resumption to occur.
