Germline Stem Cells in Ovaries and Female Reproductive Aging

In today's open access paper, researchers discuss the evidence for the existence of germline stem cells in the ovaries, responsible for maintaining fertility in the usual manner of stem cells, by generating daughter cells that replace losses and ensure function. Is ovarian aging, leading into age-related infertility, much accelerated over the aging of other organs in our species because this stem cell population loses function more rapidly than those in other tissues? That is a reasonable hypothesis, and some of the possible mechanisms are discussed. That overies are a hypoxic environment to begin with, and that supply of oxygen and nutrients does tend to decline with age for a range of reasons, is one of the more intriguing ideas. A number of groups, including a few biotech startups in the growing longevity industry, appear to believe that ovarian aging is a good place to start on the development of the next generation of regenerative medicine, deploying more sophisticated approaches to either replace stem cell populations or rejuvenate existing populations and their damaged niches. In part this is because such therapies would be targeted to people who are not very old, are more robust and resilient. In part it is because the understanding of ovarian tissue and cell function has reached a tipping point: we are past the point at which researchers have constructed artificial ovaries and demonstrated that they are functional following transplantation into mice, for examp...
Source: Fight Aging! - Category: Research Authors: Tags: Medicine, Biotech, Research Source Type: blogs