Gonadal cords

In female animals, the expression of Dax-1, with the absence of SRY gene, may result to the suppression
of the formation of a testis and allows the indifferent gonads to develop into ovaries.

The sex cords derived from the coelomic epithelium leak into the mesenchyme and grow towards the
mesogenital region and combines with mesonephric tubules. These primary cords, called medullary
cords, contains some primitive germinal cells, but most frequently remain less well developed and
decay. The next set of sex cords is named cortical cords, which reaches only the cortical region of the
future ovary. After following breakdown of cortical cords, germ cells undergo a period of enhanced
mitotic activity, which ceases shortly after birth or before having birth. Oogonia is obtained during this
period of multiplication hundreds of thousands of primordial germinal cells. High percentage of oogonia
later undergo degenerative change called atresia.

As the period of the mitotic activity is completed, individual oogonia becomes surrounded by a layer of
squamous cells, called follicular cells. There are three sites of origin of follicular cells have been
proposed: cells of the coelomic epithelium, primitive sex cords of mesonephric origin, and a
combination of both.