\t\t\t<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t <\/p>\n \tRelated story \t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\tWhitney Port Says This ‘Annoying’ Surgery Is the Next Step in Her IVF Journey\t\t<\/p>\n <\/span><\/p><\/div>\n \t\t<\/a><\/p>\n<\/article>\n \t \n\tThe rete ovarii\u2019s comeback was kind of a happy accident. Developmental biologist Jennifer McKey was imaging mouse ovaries at Duke University when she spotted<\/a> something she didn\u2019t recognize: a horseshoe-shaped structure curled around the bottom of the ovary. After some digging through old scientific literature, she realized it was the long-lost rete ovarii.<\/p>\n \n\tIn a 2025 study<\/a> published in eLife, McKey and her colleagues mapped three distinct regions of the structure (the intraovarian rete, the connecting rete, and the extraovarian rete), all of which stick around into adulthood. And for something that was supposedly useless, it\u2019s pretty busy. Parts of it form tubes that move protein-filled fluid toward the ovary, and it\u2019s surrounded by blood vessels, nerves, and immune cells. Some of the proteins it releases are tied to egg maturation and follicle health, and their activity ramps up when estrogen levels rise. One researcher even compared it to an \u201covarian antenna.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tThere\u2019s just one thing I need to mention, though: this study was done on mice. <\/em>Humans have a rete ovarii, too, but nobody knows yet whether ours works the same way. \u201cWe do not yet know whether the same functional mechanisms operate in humans or whether the rete ovarii has a clinically significant role in human fertility<\/a>,\u201d Dr. Snehal Kohale, an OB-GYN, fertility specialist, and founder of Ova Care<\/a>, tells SheKnows<\/em>.<\/p>\n \n\tInterestingly, Kohale isn\u2019t totally sold on the word \u201cerased.\u201d She sees it \u201cmore as an example of how scientific understanding evolves with new evidence, research priorities and technological capabilities.\u201d Fair enough. But research priorities are kind of the whole point, aren\u2019t they? Meanwhile, as Wolf noted in her video, the male version (the rete testis<\/a>) has been in anatomy textbooks this whole time. Make it make sense.<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cA structure being poorly understood does not necessarily mean that it is biologically irrelevant,\u201d Kohale says. She adds that conditions like endometriosis<\/a>, polyendocrine metabolic ovarian syndrome (PMOS<\/a>, formerly known as PCOS), and infertility<\/a> still need deeper research, and that \u201cthere are still important gaps in our understanding of female biology across the entire life course.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tSo, no, your doctor probably won\u2019t bring up the rete ovarii at your next annual exam. (Not yet, anyway.) But as Kohale puts it, \u201cThe more carefully we study the female body, the more we recognize how much there is still to learn.\u201d Here\u2019s hoping the next generation of OB-GYNs learns its name.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n![\"Whitney](\"https:\/\/www.sheknows.com\/wp-content\/themes\/vip\/pmc-sheknows-2020\/assets\/public\/lazyload-fallback.gif\")
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\n<\/section>\n<\/p>\n\n\t\tWhat Is the Rete Ovarii, and What Does It Do?\t<\/h2>\n
\n\t\tWhy the Rete Ovarii\u2019s Rediscovery Matters\t<\/h2>\n