Am Nat. 2022 Sep;200(3):373-382. doi: 10.1086/720440. Epub 2022 Jul 11.
AbstractBecause parental care has a heritable basis, the benefits of receiving increased parental provisioning early in life are genetically linked to the costs of providing increased parental provisioning at adulthood. Reproductive strategies thus result in distinct cost-benefit syndromes across the life course that may shape individual health and aging trajectories. Here we used an artificial selection approach in Japanese quail () to test how reproductive strategies affect telomere length, a biomarker of somatic state, at different life stages. We show that males but not females from lines selected for low maternal investment (i.e., developing in a relatively small egg) had shorter telomeres at birth. These patterns were still weakly present at the end of the juvenile growth period. In contrast, significantly shorter telomeres were found in reproductively active adult birds from the high-investment lines, suggesting that telomere attrition was accelerated in these individuals once they had become reproductively active. Our study shows that reproductive strategies differentially affect telomere dynamics across the life course, highlighting the role of cross-generational constraints in shaping individual aging trajectories.
摘要
由于亲代抚育具有遗传基础，因此在生命早期获得更多亲代抚育的好处与在成年时提供更多亲代抚育的成本在基因上是相关的。因此，生殖策略在整个生命周期中导致了不同的成本效益综合征，这些综合征可能会影响个体的健康和衰老轨迹。在这里，我们使用人工选择的方法在鹌鹑（）中测试了生殖策略如何影响不同生命阶段的端粒长度，这是一种体细胞状态的生物标志物。我们发现，来自低母投资选择系（即，在相对较小的蛋中发育）的雄性鹌鹑而不是雌性鹌鹑在出生时的端粒较短。这些模式在幼体生长末期仍然存在，但较弱。相比之下，在高投资系具有繁殖能力的成年鸟类中发现端粒显著缩短，这表明一旦这些个体开始具有繁殖能力，端粒损耗就会加速。我们的研究表明，生殖策略在整个生命过程中对端粒动态有差异影响，突出了跨代约束在塑造个体衰老轨迹中的作用。
