Ovarian follicle loss in humans and mice: lessons from statistical model comparison

BACKGROUND Mammalian oocyte stocks reach maximum size in early development and begin depletion immediately thereafter. This depletion ends women's fertility by midlife. Here we compare five models proposed to characterize human follicular depletion, highlight underlying variation in atresia, an...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:	Human reproduction (Oxford) Vol. 25; no. 7; pp. 1796 - 1805
Main Authors:	Coxworth, J.E., Hawkes, K.
Format:	Journal Article
Language:	English
Published:	Oxford Oxford University Press 01-07-2010
Subjects:	Age Factors Akaike information criteria Animals atresia Biological and medical sciences biphasic Female Follicular Atresia - physiology Gynecology. Andrology. Obstetrics Humans Medical sciences menopause Mice Mice, Inbred Strains Models, Animal Models, Biological oocyte Ovarian Follicle - physiology Species Specificity atresia oocyte Akaike information criteria menopause biphasic Human Animal model Menopause Rodentia Germinal cell Information Ovary Vertebrata Mammalia Mouse Animal Statistical model Female genital system Atresia Ovarian follicle Comparative study Oocyte
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Summary:	BACKGROUND Mammalian oocyte stocks reach maximum size in early development and begin depletion immediately thereafter. This depletion ends women's fertility by midlife. Here we compare five models proposed to characterize human follicular depletion, highlight underlying variation in atresia, and use oocyte counts from laboratory mice to illustrate possible effects of known covariates. METHODS We compared statistical models, of human data, from five well-known sources and also compared the models' fit to data from four genetically distinct strains of mice. RESULTS A model first published by Hansen et al. (2008) fit the human data better than any of the alternatives. Best-fit models of oocyte loss in the four strains of mice differed substantially from the best-fit model of the aggregated mouse data. CONCLUSIONS Although the power model published by Hansen et al. (2008) fit the human data best, Faddy and Gosden's (1996) differential equation model may be a more useful characterization of human follicular atresia. However, these models leave a great deal of variation unexplained. Mouse strain comparisons show that follicle loss in genetically distinct subpopulations can differ substantially from the pattern in the aggregate population. This indicates that differences in follicular stock size between and within populations depend upon more than a single predictor (i.e. age or follicle stocks at previous time points). Our reliance upon data from Western populations represents this study's most important limitation. Expanding data collection to include likely covariates and a wider range of human populations would improve the basis for predicting individual trajectories of follicle loss as more women worldwide opt to delay childbearing and risk aging beyond their own windows of fertility.
Bibliography:	ArticleID:deq136 istex:44AE0584F493B06AA4D8314E0C11FB669480100D ark:/67375/HXZ-CJ1FLWJK-N ObjectType-Article-1 SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1 ObjectType-Feature-2 content type line 23 ObjectType-Article-2 ObjectType-Feature-1
ISSN:	0268-1161 1460-2350
DOI:	10.1093/humrep/deq136