Artificial Ovary Offers More Natural Hormone Replacement

Featured Article Academic Journal Main Category: Endocrinology Also Included In: Women's Health / Gynecology Article Date: 09 Apr 2013 - 5:00 PDT

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Ovaries produce eggs and also secrete sex hormones that are important for women's bone and heart health.

Women who are post-menopausal or whose ovaries are damaged or have been removed, don't produce sex hormones, which can lead to undesirable effects ranging from hot flashes and vaginal dryness to infertility. There is also an increased risk of osteoporosis and heart disease.

But while drug-based hormone replacement therapy (HRT) can help, it is often not recommended for long-term use due to the increased risk of heart disease and breast cancer.

Reporting in the March issue of Biomaterials, Emmanuel Opara at Wake Forest University, North Carolina, and colleagues, describe how using tissue from rats, they made a bioartificial ovary by placing two hormone-producing ovary cells in an algal capsule to simulate the natural follicular environment, and then stimulated it using pituitary gland hormones.

The capsule has a membrane that is thin enough to allow oxygen and nutrients to enter.

For the study, the team isolated two types of endocrine cell (theca and granulosa) from the ovaries of 21-day-old rats and then evaluated three different ways of encapsulating them.

One way of encapsulating them, which they describe as "multilayer alginate microcapsules" was designed to closely mimic the natural ovary, which contains layers of cells in a three-dimensional shape. The other two encapsulation schemes had two-dimensional designs and were used as controls.

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Artificial Ovary Offers More Natural Hormone Replacement