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Reproductive aging

Spermidine promotes fertility in aged female mice

Nature Aging volume 3, pages 1317–1319 (2023)Cite this article

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Female fecundity decreases one to two decades before the menopausal transition. A study by Zhang et al. now identifies aging-related decline of the polyamine spermidine as a crucial bottleneck for oocyte quality. Supplementation with spermidine rejuvenates oocytes in vitro and in vivo, and leads to improved fertility of middle-aged female mice.

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Fig. 1: Declining spermidine levels are a crucial factor in age-related loss of fecundity.

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Acknowledgements

F.M. is grateful to the Austrian Science Fund FWF (F3012, W1226, P29203, P29262, P27893, P31727, P37016) and the Austrian Federal Ministry of Education, Science and Research as well as the University of Graz for grants ‘Unkonventionelle Forschung-InterFast and Fast4Health’ and ‘flysleep’ (BMWFW-80.109/0001-WF/V/3b/2015). We acknowledge the support of the Field of Excellence BioHealth of NAWI Graz and the BioTechMed-Graz flagship project ‘EPIAge’.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Molecular Biosciences, NAWI Graz, University of Graz, Graz, Austria

    Andreas Zimmermann & Frank Madeo

  2. Field of Excellence BioHealth – University of Graz, Graz, Austria

    Andreas Zimmermann & Frank Madeo

  3. BioTechMed-Graz, Graz, Austria

    Andreas Zimmermann & Frank Madeo

Authors
  1. Andreas Zimmermann
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  2. Frank Madeo
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Correspondence to Frank Madeo.

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Competing interests

F.M. has equity interests and is advisor of The Longevity Labs (TLL) and has equity interest in in Samsara Therapeutics. A.Z. declares no conflict of interest.

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Zimmermann, A., Madeo, F. Spermidine promotes fertility in aged female mice. Nat Aging 3, 1317–1319 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s43587-023-00495-x

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