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null Teruko Taketo, PhD

Senior Scientist, RI-MUHC, Glen site

Child Health and Human Development Program

Centre for Translational Biology

Professor, Department of Surgery, Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, McGill University

 

Keywords

Female fertility • oocyte • meiosis • apoptosis • sex chromosomes

Research Focus

On average one in six couples who desire to have children experience difficulties; the cause of infertility can be attributed equally to men and women. However, the number and quality of oocytes (the precursor of eggs) in the ovarian reserve are largely established in women before their birth, and as both decline with age, women’s age is a major factor contributing to infertility. Using animal models to investigate genetic and cellular events that take place in the oocytes during fetal development, my research aims to clarify the mechanism and evaluate the efficiency of the oocyte surveillance mechanism that limits the ovarian reserve. In addition, my interest is to identify the factors that influence the quality of oocytes responsible for successful embryonic development.

Selected Publications

Click on Pubmed to see my current publications list

  • Zhu J-Q, Tan SL, Taketo T (2017) A lack of coordination between sister chromatid segregation and cytokinesis in the oocytes of B6.YTIR (XY) sex-reversed female mice. Scientific Reports 7:960. PMID: 28424461.

  • Moawad AR, Xu B, Tan SL, Taketo T (2014) L-carnitine supplementation during vitrification of mouse germinal vesicle stage–oocytes and their subsequent in vitro maturation improves meiotic spindle configuration and mitochondrial distribution in metaphase II oocytes. Human Reproduction 29: 2256-2268. PMID: 25113843.

  • Vernet N, Szot M, Mahadevaiah SK, Ellis PJI, Decarpentrie F, Ojarikre OA, Rattigan A, Taketo T, Burgoyne PS (2014) The expression of Y-linked Zfy2 in XY mouse oocytes leads to frequent meiosis 2 defects, a high incidence of subsequent early cleavage stage arrest and infertility. Development 141: 855-866. PMID: 24496622.

  • Taketo T, Naumova AK (2013) Oocyte heterogeneity with respect to the meiotic silencing of unsynapsed X chromosomes in the XY female mouse. Chromosoma 122: 337-349. PMID: 23760560.

  • Ene AC, Park S, Edelmann W, Taketo T (2013) Caspase 9 is constitutively activated in mouse oocytes and plays a key role in oocyte elimination during meiotic prophase progression. Developmental Biology 377: 213-223. PMID: 23384561.