Infertility

"This research gives us important new information about fertility.

It’s a basic science finding, but it may provide answers for some of these women and, possibly, lead to better in-vitro fertilization therapies." In 2001, Freiman and colleagues at Berkeley published a paper in Science describing the essential role a transcription factor called TAF4b plays in the fertility of female mice.

Without this protein, egg-producing ovarian follicles didn’t develop properly.

The result: infertile mice.

The new research underscores TAF4b’s central role in normal reproduction.

The Brown and Berkeley team found that in the granulosa cells of the ovary, it triggers production of another protein, called c-Jun, and together they switch on a network of ovarian genes that help promote granulosa cell proliferation.

"The big surprise was c-Jun," Freiman said.

That's because this well-studied protein is found at high levels in damaged nerve tissue as well as in the tumors of certain cancers, including cancer of the skin and liver and in Hodgkin's lymphoma.

The new research is the first to connect c-Jun to this network of ovarian genes.

Freiman said the discovery reveals a potential connection between TAF4b and c-Jun a...

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