A phenotypic in vitro assay of mouse oocyte maturation identifies reversible blockers of meiotic progression for non-hormonal contraceptive discovery
Jeffrey Pea, Yiru Zhu, Hoi Chang Lee, Lauren R Haky, John Proudfoot, Richard Nelson, Francesca E Duncan · 2026
Read A phenotypic in vitro assay of mouse oocyte maturation identifies reversible blockers of meiotic progression for non-hormonal contraceptive discovery by Jeffrey Pea, Yiru Zhu, Hoi Chang Lee, Lauren R Haky, John Proudfoot, Richard Nelson, Francesca E Duncan (2026) in the Tower of Babel, a free online library of public-domain works preserved in clean, searchable text. No sign-up. The full text is served as a plain-text file at a predictable URL, where text is present: https://antarctic-labs.com/tower-of-babel/pmc-13290471.txt.
Description
Jeffrey Pea and co-authors build a screening assay for non-hormonal contraceptive leads in a 2026 study. The assay watches mouse egg cells mature in a dish, a process a drug could pause. Blocking that maturation without hormones is a long-sought contraceptive strategy. Eggs were matured for about fourteen to sixteen hours with single doses of test compounds. The team screened 818 compounds chosen from a bioactive library.
A hit had to block maturation by at least eighty percent. Twenty-nine compounds cleared that bar in the first pass. Fresh supplies and dose curves confirmed eighteen of them. Five froze eggs at the earliest stage, though four worked through a known enzyme route the team wanted to avoid. Thirteen let maturation resume but stopped the final polar body step. The authors value the assay for sorting blockers by stage and reversibility. Confirmed hits offer starting points for contraceptive chemistry.
Catalog record
| CREATOR | Jeffrey Pea, Yiru Zhu, Hoi Chang Lee, Lauren R Haky, John Proudfoot, Richard Nelson, Francesca E Duncan |
|---|---|
| YEAR | 2026 |
| COLLECTION | PAPERS |
| FORMAT | TXT |
| FILE SIZE | 57 KB |
| VERSION | 1.0 |
| LICENSE | CC BY 4.0 |
| RIGHTS | CC BY |
| SOURCE | Europe PMC |