Watch the first-ever video of ovulation in real time

For the first time, scientists have filmed the process by which eggs are released from the ovaries ovulation – and they captured it down to the smallest detail.

In the stunning new video, a mature mouse egg is explosively ejected from its fluid-filled sac – a so-called follicle – into a laboratory dish. The team observed follicles that were isolated from mice and then grown in Petri dishes before being stimulated to ovulate using specific hormones.

Researchers captured this moment with a new imaging technique that can be used in living tissue, as they described in a study published Oct. 16 in the journal Natural cell biology.

Ovulation in humans is similar to that in mice. Women of childbearing age typically release a mature egg from their egg Ovaries into the fallopian tubes around day 14 of her 28-day menstrual cycle. After ovulation, the egg then travels through the fallopian tubes to the uterus. If the egg is then fertilized by a sperm cellit can potentially form an embryo; Otherwise, menstruation will soon begin and expel the egg from the body.

Related: A third of transsexuals taking testosterone may still ovulate, increasing the chance of pregnancy

In the past, scientists have had difficulty studying the mechanisms that control ovulation in living organisms because the process occurs deep inside the body, the authors of the new paper noted. Consequently, most of what we currently know about ovulation comes from studying tissues that were removed from the ovaries and then fixed in a solution so that they can be viewed under a microscope outside the body. At this point, the preserved tissues are no longer alive.

In the new study, researchers used the new imaging technique to observe the entire process of ovulation in living mouse follicles in laboratory dishes.

They showed that ovulation occurs in three different phases. First, the largest and most mature follicle in the ovary increases in size by about 1.5 times over the course of eight hours. This process is driven by the secretion of a substance called Hyaluronic acidwhich indirectly causes fluid to flow into the follicle. Then the muscle cells in the outermost layer of the follicle quickly contract before finally pushing out the egg inside.

A mature egg after being expelled from a follicle during ovulation, imaged in high resolution under a microscope. The egg can be seen as a small purple circle in the upper middle part of the image. (Image credit: Christopher Thomas, Tabea Lilian Marx et al. / Max Planck Institute for Multidisciplinary Sciences)

In separate experiments from the same study, researchers found that blocking any of these three steps hindered ovulation, meaning the egg was not released. This shows how important each step is.

“Our results show that ovulation is a remarkably robust process,” said study co-author Melina ShoeDirector of the Max Planck Institute for Multidisciplinary Sciences in Germany said in a opinion. “Although an external stimulus is essential for triggering ovulation, the subsequent processes occur independently of the rest of the ovary because all the necessary information is contained within the follicle itself,” she said.

Schuh and colleagues now hope that their imaging technology will be used to further improve our understanding of ovulation and female fertility.

“With our new method, we and other researchers can further investigate the mechanisms of ovulation and hopefully gain new insights for human fertility research,” she said.

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