A breakthrough in identification of the factor that induces mitosis came from studies of oocyte development in the frog Xenopus laevis. To understand these experiments, we must first lay out the events of oocyte maturation. As oocytes develop in the frog ovary, they replicate their DNA and become arrested in G2 for 8 months as they grow in size to a diameter of 1 mm, stockpiling all the materials needed for the multiple cell divisions required to generate a swimming, feeding tadpole. When stimulated by a male, an adult female’s ovarian cells secrete the steroid hormone progesterone, which induces the G2-arrested oocytes to enter meiosis I, the first cell division of meiosis (see Figure 8-2). Following this exposure to progesterone, frog oocytes continue through meiosis I, the succeeding interphase, and then arrest during the second meiotic metaphase. At this stage the cells are called eggs. When fertilized by sperm, the egg nucleus is released from its metaphase arrest and completes meiosis. The resulting haploid egg nucleus then fuses with the haploid sperm nucleus, producing a diploid zygote, and the mitotic divisions of early embryogenesis begin.