Enhanced branched-chain amino acid metabolism improves age-related reproduction in C. elegans.

Reproductive ageing is one of the earliest human ageing phenotypes, and mitochondrial dysfunction has been linked to oocyte quality decline; however, it is not known which mitochondrial metabolic processes are critical for oocyte quality maintenance with age. To understand how mitochondrial processes contribute to Caenorhabditis elegans oocyte quality, we characterized the mitochondrial proteomes of young and aged wild-type and long-reproductive daf-2 mutants. Here we show that the mitochondrial proteomic profiles of young wild-type and daf-2 worms are similar and share upregulation of branched-chain amino acid (BCAA) metabolism pathway enzymes.

Enhanced Branched-Chain Amino Acid Metabolism Improves Age-Related Reproduction in .

Reproductive aging is one of the earliest human aging phenotypes, and mitochondrial dysfunction has been linked to oocyte quality decline. However, it is not known which mitochondrial metabolic processes are critical for oocyte quality maintenance with age. To understand how mitochondrial processes contribute to oocyte quality, we characterized the mitochondrial proteomes of young and aged wild-type and long-reproductive mutants.

Lab, a microfluidic platform for the study of life history traits, reveals metformin and SGK-1 regulation of longevity and reproductive span.

The potential to carry out high-throughput assays in a whole organism in a small space is one of the benefits of , but worm assays often require a large sample size with frequent physical manipulations, rendering them highly labor-intensive. Microfluidic assays have been designed with specific questions in mind, such as analysis of behavior, embryonic development, lifespan, and motility. While these devices have many advantages, current technologies to automate worm experiments have several limitations that prevent widespread adoption, and most do not allow analyses of reproduction-linked traits.

Lab, a Microfluidic Platform for the Study of Life History Traits, reveals Metformin and SGK-1 regulation of Longevity and Reproductive Span.

The potential to carry out high-throughput assays in a whole organism in a small space is one of the benefits of , but worm assays often require a large sample size with frequent physical manipulations, rendering them highly labor-intensive. Microfluidic assays have been designed with specific questions in mind, such as analysis of behavior, embryonic development, lifespan, and motility. While these devices have many advantages, current technologies to automate worm experiments have several limitations that prevent widespread adoption, and most do not allow analyses of reproduction-linked traits.

Oocyte mitophagy is critical for extended reproductive longevity.

Women's reproductive cessation is the earliest sign of human aging and is caused by decreasing oocyte quality. Similarly, C. elegans' reproduction declines in mid-adulthood and is caused by oocyte quality decline.

The role of the Cer1 transposon in horizontal transfer of transgenerational memory.

Animals face both external and internal dangers: pathogens threaten from the environment, and unstable genomic elements threaten from within. C. elegans protects itself from pathogens by "reading" bacterial small RNAs, using this information to both induce avoidance and transmit memories for four generations.

CREB Non-autonomously Controls Reproductive Aging through Hedgehog/Patched Signaling.

Evolutionarily conserved signaling pathways are crucial for adjusting growth, reproduction, and cell maintenance in response to altered environmental conditions or energy balance. However, we have an incomplete understanding of the signaling networks and mechanistic changes that coordinate physiological changes across tissues. We found that loss of the cAMP response element-binding protein (CREB) transcription factor significantly slows Caenorhabditis elegans' reproductive decline, an early hallmark of aging in many animals.

Male meiotic spindle features that efficiently segregate paired and lagging chromosomes.

Chromosome segregation during male meiosis is tailored to rapidly generate multitudes of sperm. Little is known about mechanisms that efficiently partition chromosomes to produce sperm. Using live imaging and tomographic reconstructions of spermatocyte meiotic spindles in , we find the lagging X chromosome, a distinctive feature of anaphase I in males, is due to lack of chromosome pairing.