University of Pennsylvania biologists studying human reproduction have identified what is likely the major contributing factor to the maternal age-associated increase in aneuploidy, the term for an abnormal number of chromosomes during reproductive cell division.
Using naturally aging mouse models, researchers showed that this basic fact of reproductive life is most likely caused by weakened chromosome cohesion. Older oocytes, or egg cells, have dramatically reduced amounts of a protein, REC8, that is essential for chromosomes to segregate correctly during the process that forms an egg. Mistakes in this process can create chromosomal abnormalities like Down syndrome.
Richard Schultz, associate dean for the natural sciences and the Charles and William L. Day Distinguished Professor of Biology in Penn's School of Arts and Sciences, and Michael Lampson, assistant professor of biology, found that kinetochores - the protein structures that mark the site where a chromosome pair is split during cell division - are farther apart in eggs obtained from aged mice, resulting in reduced centromere cohesion. Because cohesion in these cells is established during fetal development, and must remain functional until meiotic resumption in adult life (up to ~50 years later in humans or 15 months in mice), defective cohesion is a good candidate for a process that might fail with increasing maternal age.
Researchers demonstrated that about 90 percent of age-related aneuploidies are best explained by weakened centromere cohesion. Together, these results show that the maternal age-associated increase in aneuploidy is often due to a failure to effectively replace cohesin proteins lost during aging.