• Ovarian histological profile by using D galactose induction for premature ovarian failure model in small laboratory animals: A systematic review
  • Marzieh Rostami Dovom,1 Mahsa Noroozzadeh ,2 Nariman Mosaffa,3 Azita Zadeh-Vakili ,4 Abbas Piryaei,5 Fahimeh Ramezani Tehrani,6,*
    1. Reproductive Endocrinology Research Center, Research Institute for Endocrine Sciences, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, IR Iran.
    2. Reproductive Endocrinology Research Center, Research Institute for Endocrine Sciences, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, IR Iran
    3. Department of Immunology, School of Medicine, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran
    4. Cellular and Molecular Endocrine Research Center, Research Institute for Endocrine Sciences, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran
    5. Urogenital Stem Cell Research Center, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran
    6. Reproductive Endocrinology Research Center, Research Institute for Endocrine Sciences, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, IR Iran.


  • Introduction: Premature ovarian insufficiency (POI) is defined as development of a hyper-gonadotropic hypoestrogenism condition in women <40 years. POI is the most common long-term complication in female survivors of galactosemia. In this systematic review, summarize the galactose (GAL) induced POI in rat and mice models. We aimed to investigate ovarian histological changes after D galactose treatment in small animal laboratories.
  • Methods: For this systematic review, we conducted a search of case control studies published from 1990 until August 2018 in PubMed/Medline, and Web of science, using the descriptors in the title/abstract field. A 'pearl growing' strategy was employed whereby, after obtaining the full text articles, reference lists of all included studies (n=14) were reviewed for additional publications that could be used.
  • Results: We selected and categorized 14 studies according to the time of exposure to GAL into two groups of prenatal (n = 4) and postnatal (n = 10). Findings of these studies showed that the different stages of follicular development are targeted differently by galactose exposure during the prenatal and postnatal periods: The small follicles (primordial and primary follicles) are targeted by galactose toxicity during prenatal exposure and the pre-antral and antral follicles are targeted by galactose toxicity during postnatal exposure.
  • Conclusion: The ovarian histological changes under D galactose treatment are associated to the time of exposure. The primordial and primary follicle numbers have been reduced by prenatal treatment, whereas the reduced number of antral follicles have been expected by postnatal exposure.
  • Keywords: galactose, premature ovarian insufficiency, animal models, systematic review