Effect of vascular endothelial growth factor 165a on porcine primordial follicle development in vitro: a preliminary study

Folliculogenesis is a complex process of ovarian follicle growth and development, which is yet to be completely understood. Vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) is known for its ability to promote angiogenesis. Among different candidates, VEGF165a is recognized as one of the major factors that determines the degree of vascularisation of the target tissue. This brings up the importance of studying the role of VEGF165a in ovarian follicle activation with special emphasis to ovarian cortex. The objective of current study was to determine the effect of VEGF165a on porcine primordial follicle viability in vitro. This preliminary data was obtained from short-term (72 hours) in vitro culture of porcine ovarian cortical strips under 5% CO₂ and 95% O₂ under the humidified atmospheric conditions. Cortical strips were treated with 0.1ng/ml VEGF 165a, 1.0ng/ml VEGF 165a, 10.0ng/ml VEGF165a. Parallel to the treatments, a negative control (Tissues were fixed on 10% neutral buffered formalin) and a positive control were conducted. In this study, all the observations suggested that the lower concentrations of VEGF165a has increased the follicle viability among all treated groups (0.1ng/ml, 88.02%; 1ng/ml, 67.68%; 10ng/ml, 25.21%) while higher concentrations implicit higher follicle degeneration (74.79%). In conclusion, the lowest VEGF165a concentration has increased the follicle viability while the highest concentrations implicit increased follicle degeneration in this study.