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Updated: Jan 30, 2026

Evaluation of Fertilization State by Tracing Sperm Nuclear Morphology in Arabidopsis Double Fertilization
Published on: August 29, 2019
Daily rhythms count for female fertility
Valérie Simonneaux1, Thibault Bahougne2, Eleni Angelopoulou3
1Institut des Neurosciences Cellulaires et Intégratives, UPR CNRS 3212, 5 rue Blaise Pascal, 67084 Strasbourg, France.
Abstract:
Female ovulation depends on a surge in circulating luteinizing hormone (LH) which occurs at the end of the resting period and requests high circulating estradiol. This fine tuning involves both an estradiol feedback as an indicator of oocyte maturation, and the master circadian clock of the suprachiasmatic nuclei as an indicator of the time of the day. This review describes the mechanisms through which daily time cues are conveyed to reproductive hypothalamic neurons to time the pre-ovulatory surge. In female rodents, neurotransmitters released by the suprachiasmatic nuclei activate the stimulatory kisspeptin neurons and reduce the inhibitory RFRP neurons precisely at the end of the afternoon of proestrus to allow a full surge in LH secretion. From these findings, the impact of circadian disruptions (during shift or night work) on female reproductive performance and fertility should now being investigated in both animal models and humans.
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