Age-associated alterations in the micromechanical properties of chromosomes in the mammalian egg

作者：Hornick Jessica E; Duncan Francesca E; Sun Mingxuan; Kawamura Ryo; Marko John F; Woodruff Teresa K^*

来源：Journal of Assisted Reproduction and Genetics, 2015, 32(5): 765-769.

DOI：10.1007/s10815-015-0453-y

• Reproductive aging
• Meiosis
• Mammalian
• Chromosome
• Micromechanics

The incidence of aneuploidy in eggs from women of advanced reproductive age can exceed 60 %, making the mammalian egg a unique model system to study the mechanisms of chromosome segregation errors.
Here we applied a novel biophysical chromosome stretching approach to quantify mechanical stiffness of meiotic chromosomes in the mammalian egg and then documented how these properties changed in a mouse model of physiologic reproductive aging.
We found significant differences in chromosome micromechanics, and thus in higher order chromosome structure, coincident with advanced reproductive age, a time that is also unequivocally associated with an increase in egg aneuploidy.
These findings have important implications for both reproductive and cancer biology where aneuploidy plays a central role in aging related disease states.

• 出版日期2015-5
• 单位西北大学