A single-cell atlas of the aging mouse ovary.
José V V IsolaSarah R OcañasChase R HubbartSunghwan KoSamim Ali MondalJessica D HenseHannah N C CarterAugusto SchneiderSusan KovatsJose Alberola-IlaWillard M FreemanMichael B StoutPublished in: Nature aging (2024)
Ovarian aging leads to diminished fertility, dysregulated endocrine signaling and increased chronic disease burden. These effects begin to emerge long before follicular exhaustion. Female humans experience a sharp decline in fertility around 35 years of age, which corresponds to declines in oocyte quality. Despite a growing body of work, the field lacks a comprehensive cellular map of the transcriptomic changes in the aging mouse ovary to identify early drivers of ovarian decline. To fill this gap we performed single-cell RNA sequencing on ovarian tissue from young (3-month-old) and reproductively aged (9-month-old) mice. Our analysis revealed a doubling of immune cells in the aged ovary, with lymphocyte proportions increasing the most, which was confirmed by flow cytometry. We also found an age-related downregulation of collagenase pathways in stromal fibroblasts, which corresponds to rises in ovarian fibrosis. Follicular cells displayed stress-response, immunogenic and fibrotic signaling pathway inductions with aging. This report provides critical insights into mechanisms responsible for ovarian aging phenotypes. The data can be explored interactively via a Shiny-based web application.
Keyphrases
- single cell
- rna seq
- signaling pathway
- flow cytometry
- high throughput
- induced apoptosis
- pi k akt
- young adults
- bone marrow
- metabolic syndrome
- machine learning
- type diabetes
- cell cycle arrest
- epithelial mesenchymal transition
- oxidative stress
- artificial intelligence
- adipose tissue
- big data
- skeletal muscle
- high density
- deep learning