Frontiers in Bioscience-Landmark (FBL) is published by IMR Press from Volume 26 Issue 5 (2021). Previous articles were published by another publisher on a subscription basis, and they are hosted by IMR Press on imrpress.com as a courtesy and upon agreement with Frontiers in Bioscience.
The gene knockout technology has revolutionized the fertility/infertility field. It has revealed several essential previously undiscovered molecules, new insights and novel mechanisms involved in steps of the fertility cascade in females. Using database and literature search, knockouts of at least 83 genes were discovered that demonstrated an effect on fertility of female mice. These effects ranged from abnormality in reproductive structure, ovarian function, oocyte, fertilization, embryonic and fetal development, implantation and pregnancy to delivery. However, only a few of these knockout of genes such as encoding oocyte glycoprotein coat comprised of zona pellucida (ZP) 1, ZP2 and ZP3 and oocute plasma membrane specific proteins showed a specific and exclusive target infertility effect without concomitant effects on the non-reproductive organ system. These molecules will provide novel targets of contraception including contraceptive vaccine development.