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Maternal diabetes adversely affects preimplantation embryo development and oocyte maturation. Thus, it is important to identify ways to eliminate the effects of maternal diabetes on preimplantation embryos and oocytes. The objectives of this study were to investigate whether islet transplantation could reverse the effects of diabetes on oocytes. Our results revealed that maternal diabetes induced decreased ovulation; increased the frequency of meiotic spindle defects, chromosome misalignment, and aneuploidy; increased the relative expression levels of Mad2 and Bub1; and enhanced the sensitivity of oocytes to parthenogenetic activation. Islet transplantation prevented these detrimental effects. Therefore, we concluded that islet transplantation could reverse the effects of diabetes on oocytes, and that this technique may be useful to treat the fundamental reproductive problems of women with diabetes mellitus.

Decidualization of uterine stromal cells plays an important role in the establishment of normal pregnancy. Previous studies have demonstrated that Acyl-CoA binding protein (Acbp) is critical to cellular proliferation, differentiation, mitochondrial functions, and autophagy. The characterization and physiological function of Acbp during decidualization remain largely unknown. In the present study, we conducted the expression profile of Acbp in the endometrium of early pregnant mice. With the occurrence of decidualization, the expression of Acbp gradually increased. Similarly, Acbp expression was also strongly expressed in decidualized cells following artificial decidualization, both in vivo and in vitro. We applied the mice pseudopregnancy model to reveal that the expression of Acbp in the endometrium of early pregnant mice was not induced by embryonic signaling. Moreover, P4 significantly upregulated the expression of Acbp, whereas E2 appeared to have no regulating effect on Acbp expression in uterine stromal cells. Concurrently, we found that interfering with Acbp attenuated decidualization, and that might due to mitochondrial dysfunctions and the inhibition of fatty acid oxidation. The level of autophagy was increased after knocking down Acbp. During induced decidualization, the expression of ACBP was decreased with the treatment of rapamycin (an autophagy inducer), while increased with the addition of Chloroquine (an autophagy inhibitor). Our work suggests that Acbp plays an essential role in the proliferation and differentiation of stromal cells during decidualization through regulating mitochondrial functions, fatty acid oxidation, and autophagy.