Osteo-regenerative potential of ovarian granulosa cells: An in vitro and in vivo study

Plasticity of granulosa cells: on the crossroad of stemness and transdifferentiation potential

“…In contrast, Mattioli et al [47] did not detect any sign of Oct-4 expression in isolated pig GCs. However, they demonstrated expression of other three typical pluripotent stem cell markers Nanog, Sox-2 and TERT in both growing and luteinized GCs.…”

“…Kossowska-Tomaszczuk et al [41] isolated GCs from aspirated follicular fluid of infertile patients based on FSHR; Varras et al [77] collected GCs from cumulus-oocyte complex during oocyte retrieval from fertile patients; and Mattioli et al [47] scraped GCs from internal face of the follicle wall obtained from prepubertal pigs. First variable which can affect differences in stem cell markers is fertility since it was found that the cause of female infertility can drastically affect the GCs viability [34]; therefore this factor should always be taken into account when discussing the stem cell characteristics of GCs.…”

“…All four layers are also functionally heterogeneous, secrete different molecules and express various hormone receptors [55]. The GCs are subject to increased attention since it has recently been shown that the subpopulation of GCs within the growing follicle is not terminally differentiated but showing stem cell characteristics [39,41,47,77].…”

Identifying the Cellular Mechanisms Leading to Heterotopic Ossification

“…Currently, the cross-differentiation from cells of one germ layer to another is gaining much attention as a process involved in the initiation of HO. However, the osteogenic potential of epithelial cells is subject to much debate, with some studies demonstrating an osteogenic potential while others refute it [74,75]. Early experiments looking into the effects of transplanting urinary transitional epithelium into the connective tissues of dogs and rabbits demonstrated the formation of mineralised tissue [76], while more recent studies have shown that epithelial cells over-express factors required for osteochondrogenic differentiation such as TGF-β and BMP-2 during their proliferative phase, and as such may exert a paracrine effect during HO pathogenesis [77].…”

Selected molecular and physiological aspects of mammalian ovarian granulosa cells in primary culture

“…It has been shown in several publications that some GCs in the growing follicle are not fully differentiated and exhibit stem cell properties across mammals, i.e. : ovine, porcine and human GCs (28,29,38,49). Besides stem cell properties, GCs also present high telomerase activity and are capable of differentiation into cell types that are not present within ovaries.…”