Making Smiley Faces

Before an egg can set out with a chance to meet a plucky sperm cell, a series of complex developmental steps must go off without a hitch. Researchers investigating this early stage of development have honed in on the forces driving follicle development. Each follicle is a small sack in the ovaries with an immature egg. As they mature, a fluid-filled space called the antrum grows, and advanced microscopy, machine learning, and theoretical modelling is helping scientists track this change (follicles at different phases of maturity pictured, with the most developed showing the characteristic ‘smiley face’ antrum – a sign that a follicle may be nearly ready to break open and release an egg). A failure to release eggs is a hallmark of infertility in ageing and diseases such as polycystic ovary syndrome, so understanding the physical and biological forces at play could point researchers towards practical solutions.

Written by Anthony Lewis

Anthony Lewis

Writer

Ant was the web editor in the early days of BPoD, and has since worked with the UK’s top science organisations as a writer and multimedia producer. He now splits his time between freelance work and managing multimedia at The Lancet.

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• Image from work by Jake Turley, Kim Whye Leong & Chii Jou Chan
• Mechanobiology Institute, National University of Singapore, Singapore, Singapore
• Image originally published with a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
• Published in Biophysical Reviews, October 2024