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The Role of Mitochondria in Human Fertility and Early Embryo Development: What Can We Learn for Clinical Application of Assessing and Improving Mitochondrial DNA?

Mitochondria are well known as ‘the powerhouses of the cell’. Indeed, their major role is cellular energy production driven by both mitochondrial and nuclear DNA. Such a feature makes these organelles essential for successful fertilisation and proper embryo implantation and development. Generally, mitochondrial DNA is exclusively maternally inherited; oocyte’s mitochondrial DNA level is crucial to provide sufficient ATP content for the developing embryo until the blastocyst stage of development. Additionally, human fertility and early embryogenesis may be affected by either point mutations or deletions in mitochondrial DNA. It was suggested that their accumulation may be associated with ovarian ageing. If so, is mitochondrial dysfunction the cause or consequence of ovarian ageing? Moreover, such an obvious relationship of mitochondria and mitochondrial genome with human fertility and early embryo development gives the field of mitochondrial research a great potential to be of use in clinical application. However, even now, the area of assessing and improving DNA quantity and function in reproductive medicine drives many questions and uncertainties. This review summarises the role of mitochondria and mitochondrial DNA in human reproduction and gives an insight into the utility of their clinical use.

Mitochondria: the panacea to improve oocyte quality?

Oocyte quality is one of the most important factors involving in female reproduction. The number of compromised oocytes will increase with maternal age, while mitochondrial dysfunction has implicated in age-related poor oocyte. Together with the successful application of ooplasmic transfer (OT) and the critical role of mitochondria in the oocyte, functional mitochondria transfer may be a feasible strategy to improve oocyte quality. However, limitation on ethics and laws are strictly and optimal condition or methods to exert transferring need to be further explored. Therefore, the role of oocyte mitochondria and the effective molecular involving in oocyte quality will be hot topics in next few years. In this review, we summarize the potential mechanism of mitochondria in oocyte and embryo development and discuss the next step for mitochondrial transfer therapy.