With social development, there is a trend toward women postponing marriage and childbearing, while the quality and quantity of oocytes begin to decline at 30 years of age. Ovarian putrescine deficiency is related to ageing in humans and we found putrescine supplementation in in vitro maturation medium improved oocyte quality. It showed the clinical application potential of putrescine supplementation in IVM medium, especially in the IVM of oocytes derived from ageing women.

Does male smoking have adverse effects on in vitro fertilisation (IVF) outcomes? From the 252 patients included in this study, we characterised the impact of male tobacco smoking on embryo development and major clinical outcomes. From the cohort where almost all women were non-active smokers, and using rigorous statistical multivariate analyses, no significant difference was found between active smokers, former smokers and non-smokers. Possibly, the sperm selection processes used in IVF cycles may contribute to these reassuring findings.

We studied how we could improve the in vitro culture media to obtain better quality embryos. Adding Quercetin and 4OHE₂ to the culture media decreases oxidative stress, improves the quality of the embryo obtained in vitro and increases the expression of genes involved in the implantation process. The supplementation of culture media with these compounds could improve the quality of embryos obtained in vitro in human IVF clinics and could increase the success rate of their treatments.

Our understanding of reproductive aging in livestock and humans is limited. Therefore, the aim of this study was to investigate reproductive changes between young and aged mice. We characterise for the first time cytological and epigenetic defects present in the surrounded nucleolus-type oocytes from aged mice, which provided new insight enhancing our understanding and improving the reproductive ability of aged females.