Many couples today prefer to have children after 30. But there is one “but”: the quality and number of eggs women have decreases with aging. Scientists from the University of Queensland and University of New South Wales figured out how to slow “ticking watch”: they have reversed the aging process in oocytes of mice. The results of the study will help to create new drugs for the treatment of infertility in humans.
Recall that women are born with a set of eggs, which are becoming smaller with every year of life. This reduces the fertility (ability to produce offspring). At a time when the woman is deprived of the greater part of the healthy egg, it actually becomes infertile.
the time frame of this process is individual, but it is believed that fertility begins to decline at age 30 and drops sharply to about 45 years. Simply put, when family planning should take into account the age of the person. (By the way, older fathers pass on to their children more mutations than the age of the mother.)
the Researchers Green of the continent have suggested that with reduced quality of oocytes in mice is associated a certain molecule. It was found that aging in rodents is accompanied by a decrease in the level of nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD+). The latter is important for metabolism. The decrease in the number of these molecules affects the quality of the remaining eggs, which in the end leads to problems with fertility in older female mice.
the Experts decided to find out how you can restore the level of this important coenzyme. They were also interested to know whether it can delay the onset of infertility or even cure it.
the Researchers gave the mice oral doses of the precursor compound, called nicotinamide mononucleotide (NMN). Cells use NMN to produce NAD+, therefore increasing the level of the first should contribute to the increase of NAD+ and, consequently, to improve fertility.
And this kind of therapy reallycould rodents.
“Quality eggs needed for the onset of a successful pregnancy, because they are responsible for virtually all the building blocks needed by the embryo. We treated mice with low doses of NMN, adding them in the drinking water for four weeks, and we were able to dramatically restore the quality of oocytes and increase the number of births of calves during the testing,” says supervisor Professor Hayden Homer (Hayden Homer).
As noted above, such research can help scientists create a new type of treatment for couples wanting to improve their chances to conceive a baby. But it is worth noting that while the research is at an early stage.
“Our results show that it is possible to restore the quality of eggs and, in turn, the reproductive function of women through oral administration of stimulant agents NAD. This method is much less invasive than IVF,” notes Homer. However, he also adds that the effectiveness of this method remains to be tested in clinical trials.
Scientific article on the results of the study published in Cell Reports.
Text: To.Science
