EN
An heterogeneous population of oocytes is usually collected from ovaries to be used f or several in vitro techniques. Sources of variability may be the age of oocytes, their growth stage, and the apoptosis grade. All these factors might affect an efficiency of in vitro embryo production. Although recently the new selection methods have been introduced, the in vitro embryo production efficiency does not exceed 40%. Much research is being done to determine the useful markers of oocyte developmental competence. The present review briefly describes selected biochemical and molecular markers. Subsequently the status of the members of Bcl-2 family proteins and the caspases (molecular markers) expression and their function in orchestrating cell death in oocyte and embryo were considered.