title: Meiotic spindle assembly and chromosome segregation in oocytes.
abstract: Oocytes accumulate maternal stores (proteins, mRNAs, metabolites, etc.) during their growth in the ovary to support development after fertilization. To preserve this cytoplasmic maternal inheritance, they accomplish the difficult task of partitioning their cytoplasm unequally while dividing their chromosomes equally. Added to this complexity, most oocytes, for reasons still speculative, lack the major microtubule organizing centers that most cells use to assemble and position their spindles, namely canonical centrosomes. In this review, we will address recent work on the mechanisms of meiotic spindle assembly and chromosome alignment/segregation in female gametes to try to understand the origin of errors of oocyte meiotic divisions. The challenge of oocyte divisions appears indeed not trivial because in both mice and humans oocyte meiotic divisions are prone to chromosome segregation errors, a leading cause of frequent miscarriages and congenital defects.
authors.affiliation: Centre for Interdisciplinary Research in Biology, Collège de France, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Institut National de la Santé et de la Recherche Médicale, PSL Research University, Paris 75006, France isma.bennabi@college-de-france.fr marie-helene.verlhac@college-de-france.fr.
authors.forename: Isma
authors.identifier: http://orcid.org/0000-0001-6787-8000
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Bennabi
authors.affiliation: Centre for Interdisciplinary Research in Biology, Collège de France, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Institut National de la Santé et de la Recherche Médicale, PSL Research University, Paris 75006, France.
authors.forename: Marie-Emilie
authors.identifier: http://orcid.org/0000-0001-5843-925X
authors.initials: ME
authors.lastname: Terret
authors.affiliation: Centre for Interdisciplinary Research in Biology, Collège de France, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Institut National de la Santé et de la Recherche Médicale, PSL Research University, Paris 75006, France isma.bennabi@college-de-france.fr marie-helene.verlhac@college-de-france.fr.
authors.forename: Marie-Hélène
authors.identifier: http://orcid.org/0000-0001-8377-9010
authors.initials: MH
authors.lastname: Verlhac
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D018385:Centrosome / Q000378:metabolism; D020090:Chromosome Segregation; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008540:Meiosis; D008870:Microtubules / Q000378:metabolism; D009865:Oocytes / Q000166:cytology* / Q000378:metabolism*; D008941:Spindle Apparatus / Q000378:metabolism*