Azevedo, Ana RitaPais, Ana SofiaAlmeida-Santos, TeresaPires, Virgínia M.Pessa, PedroMarques, Carla C.Nolasco, SofiaCastelo-Branco, PedroPrates, José A.Lopes-da-Costa, LuísLaranjo, MafaldaBotelho, Maria FilomenaPereira, Rosa M.Pimenta, Jorge M.2022-08-032022-08-032022-07Azevedo AR, Pais AS, Almeida-Santos T, Pires VM, Pessa P, Nolasco S, et al. Medical grade honey as a promising treatment to improve ovarian tissue transplantation. Bioengineering. 2022;9(8):357.http://hdl.handle.net/10400.21/14905Ovarian tissue cryopreservation is a female fertility preservation technique that presents major challenges for the maintenance of follicular viability after transplantation. The aim of this study was to evaluate and compare the application of L-Mesitran Soft®, a product containing 40% medical grade honey (MGH), with other strategies to improve ovarian grafts’ viability. For this purpose, bovine ovarian tissue was vitrified, warmed, and randomly assigned to culture groups: (1) control, (2) MGH 0.2% in vitro, (3) MGH in vivo (direct application in the xenotransplantation), (4) vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF 50 ng/mL) and (5) vitamin D (100 Nm), during a 48 h period. A sixth group (6) of fragments was thawed on transplantation day and was not cultured. The tissue was xenotransplanted into immunodeficient (Rowett nude homozygous) ovariectomized rats. Grafts were analyzed 48 h after culture, and 7 and 28 days after transplantation. The tissue was subjected to histological and immunohistochemical analysis. Treatments using MGH showed the highest angiogenic and cell proliferation stimulation, with cellular apoptosis, within a healthy cellular turnover pathway. In conclusion, MGH should be considered a potentially effective and less expensive strategy to improve ovarian tissue transplantation.engXenograftingOvarianVitrificationHoneyFertilityCryopreservationTransplantationjournal article10.3390/bioengineering9080357