Dipartimento Gian Filippo Ingrassia, Biologia, Genetica, Genomica Cellulare e Molecolare Giovanni Sichel, Università degli Studi di Catania, Italy.
Cell Cycle. 2011 Oct 1;10(19):3253-6. doi: 10.4161/cc.10.19.17585.
Studies on oocyte transcriptome are important to understand the biological pathways involved in oogenesis, totipotence and early embryonic development. Moreover, genes regulating physiological pathways in gametes could represent potential candidates for reproductive disorders. In addition to oocyte specific transcription factors, also the members of the p53 family could be etiologically involved due to their biological functions. In fact, their role in the control of cell cycle, apoptosis, and germ-line genome stability is well known. Female reproductive aging is one of the causes of fertility reduction and it is often associated with egg aneuploidy increase. In order to verify the potential involvement of p73 in reproductive aging, we determined its expression in single mature MII oocytes from two groups of women, younger than 35 or older than 38 years, respectively. We found that TAp73 isoforms are down regulated in oocytes from women older than 38 years. We confirmed these data in pools of mouse oocytes. TAp73 down regulation in oocytes from women of advanced reproductive age could explain both the reduction of fertility and the increase of newborns with chromosomal abnormalities.
卵母细胞转录组的研究对于了解卵发生、全能性和早期胚胎发育所涉及的生物学途径非常重要。此外，调节配子生理途径的基因可能代表生殖障碍的潜在候选基因。除了卵母细胞特异性转录因子外，p53 家族的成员也可能由于其生物学功能而在病因学上参与其中。事实上，它们在细胞周期、细胞凋亡和生殖系基因组稳定性控制中的作用是众所周知的。女性生殖衰老是生育能力下降的原因之一，通常与卵非整倍体增加有关。为了验证 p73 在生殖衰老中的潜在作用，我们在两组女性的单个成熟 MII 卵母细胞中分别检测了其表达情况，年龄分别小于 35 岁和大于 38 岁。我们发现，来自年龄大于 38 岁的女性的卵母细胞中 TAp73 异构体表达下调。我们在小鼠卵母细胞的混合样本中证实了这些数据。来自高龄女性的卵母细胞中 TAp73 的下调可能解释了生育能力的下降和新生儿染色体异常的增加。
