Medical grade honey as a promising treatment to improve ovarian tissue transplantation

• Autor(a) principal: Azevedo, Ana Rita
• Data de Publicação: 2022
• Outros Autores: Pais, Ana Sofia, Almeida-Santos, Teresa, Pires, Virgínia M., Pessa, Pedro, Marques, Carla C., Nolasco, Sofia, Castelo-Branco, Pedro, Prates, José A., Lopes-da-Costa, Luís, Laranjo, Mafalda, Botelho, Maria Filomena, Pereira, Rosa M., Pimenta, Jorge M.
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: http://hdl.handle.net/10400.21/14905
• topic: Xenografting; Ovarian; Vitrification; Honey; Fertility; Cryopreservation; Transplantation

Ovarian tissue cryopreservation is a female fertility preservation technique that presents major challenges for the maintenance of follicular viability after transplantation. The aim of this study was to evaluate and compare the application of L-Mesitran Soft®, a product containing 40% medical grade honey (MGH), with other strategies to improve ovarian grafts’ viability. For this purpose, bovine ovarian tissue was vitrified, warmed, and randomly assigned to culture groups: (1) control, (2) MGH 0.2% in vitro, (3) MGH in vivo (direct application in the xenotransplantation), (4) vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF 50 ng/mL) and (5) vitamin D (100 Nm), during a 48 h period. A sixth group (6) of fragments was thawed on transplantation day and was not cultured. The tissue was xenotransplanted into immunodeficient (Rowett nude homozygous) ovariectomized rats. Grafts were analyzed 48 h after culture, and 7 and 28 days after transplantation. The tissue was subjected to histological and immunohistochemical analysis. Treatments using MGH showed the highest angiogenic and cell proliferation stimulation, with cellular apoptosis, within a healthy cellular turnover pathway. In conclusion, MGH should be considered a potentially effective and less expensive strategy to improve ovarian tissue transplantation.