Dear Colleagues,

During oocyte maturation, hormone stimulation causes oocytes to grow rapidly into the largest cells in mammals, with an accumulation of abundant maternal factors. These proteins are essential for fertilisation and the initial development of the early embryo. After fertilisation, the sperm-derived genome undergoes rapid and precise nuclear reconstitution by maternal factors to establish fertilised oocytes as totipotent cells. However, the mechanisms that underly this process are still largely unknown.

Recently, various analyses at the single-cell level have been developed, such as high-resolution microscopy imaging and gene editing systems through micromanipulation. They have made it possible to identify responsible maternal factors and their effects on chromatin dynamics more easily. Continual advances in these techniques could improve our understanding of the mechanisms of oocyte and early embryo development.

The purpose of this special issue is to accumulate our knowledge of how maternal factors regulate oocyte maturation and the initial process of early embryo development upon fertilisation. This Special Issue welcomes the submission of original research, methodology, and review manuscripts focusing on studies of maternal factors in oocytes and preimplantation embryos, in order to identify their function and related mechanisms by various approaches. We aim to gather recent progress with current techniques and to help deepen our understanding of early embryo development.

Dr. Yuki Hatanaka
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Biology is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2700 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• oocytes
• preimplantation embryos
• maternal factor
• epigenetic reprogramming
• chromatin reconstitution
• nuclear reprogramming
• meiosis