Cargando…
Evidence for a maximum “shelf-life” of oocytes in mammals suggests that human menopause may be an implication of meiotic arrest
There is an ongoing debate why a trait like human menopause should have evolved. Adaptive explanations explain menopause with fitness benefits of ceasing reproduction, whereas non-adaptive explanations view it as an epiphenomenon. Here we present data in support of non-adaptive explanations of menop...
Autores principales: | , |
---|---|
Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Nature Publishing Group UK
2018
|
Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6148287/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30237413 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-018-32502-2 |
_version_ | 1783356732277260288 |
---|---|
author | Huber, Susanne Fieder, Martin |
author_facet | Huber, Susanne Fieder, Martin |
author_sort | Huber, Susanne |
collection | PubMed |
description | There is an ongoing debate why a trait like human menopause should have evolved. Adaptive explanations explain menopause with fitness benefits of ceasing reproduction, whereas non-adaptive explanations view it as an epiphenomenon. Here we present data in support of non-adaptive explanations of menopause suggesting a maximum shelf-life of oocytes. By analyzing the association between lifespan and age at reproductive senescence across 49 mammal species, we find that the positive association levels off in long lived species, indicating that the age at reproductive senescence has an upper limit. Only in baleen whales there seems to be no evidence for reproductive senescence. We suggest that apart from the baleen whales, the confinement of reproductive senescence in long-lived species may be the result of physiological constraints imposed by the long period of time oocytes remain inactive in an arrested phase of meiosis from their production in utero until ovulation. We therefore conclude that menopause may be an implication of the long duration of meiotic arrest caused by semelgametogenesis together with long lifespan. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-6148287 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2018 |
publisher | Nature Publishing Group UK |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-61482872019-02-12 Evidence for a maximum “shelf-life” of oocytes in mammals suggests that human menopause may be an implication of meiotic arrest Huber, Susanne Fieder, Martin Sci Rep Article There is an ongoing debate why a trait like human menopause should have evolved. Adaptive explanations explain menopause with fitness benefits of ceasing reproduction, whereas non-adaptive explanations view it as an epiphenomenon. Here we present data in support of non-adaptive explanations of menopause suggesting a maximum shelf-life of oocytes. By analyzing the association between lifespan and age at reproductive senescence across 49 mammal species, we find that the positive association levels off in long lived species, indicating that the age at reproductive senescence has an upper limit. Only in baleen whales there seems to be no evidence for reproductive senescence. We suggest that apart from the baleen whales, the confinement of reproductive senescence in long-lived species may be the result of physiological constraints imposed by the long period of time oocytes remain inactive in an arrested phase of meiosis from their production in utero until ovulation. We therefore conclude that menopause may be an implication of the long duration of meiotic arrest caused by semelgametogenesis together with long lifespan. Nature Publishing Group UK 2018-09-20 /pmc/articles/PMC6148287/ /pubmed/30237413 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-018-32502-2 Text en © The Author(s) 2018 Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. |
spellingShingle | Article Huber, Susanne Fieder, Martin Evidence for a maximum “shelf-life” of oocytes in mammals suggests that human menopause may be an implication of meiotic arrest |
title | Evidence for a maximum “shelf-life” of oocytes in mammals suggests that human menopause may be an implication of meiotic arrest |
title_full | Evidence for a maximum “shelf-life” of oocytes in mammals suggests that human menopause may be an implication of meiotic arrest |
title_fullStr | Evidence for a maximum “shelf-life” of oocytes in mammals suggests that human menopause may be an implication of meiotic arrest |
title_full_unstemmed | Evidence for a maximum “shelf-life” of oocytes in mammals suggests that human menopause may be an implication of meiotic arrest |
title_short | Evidence for a maximum “shelf-life” of oocytes in mammals suggests that human menopause may be an implication of meiotic arrest |
title_sort | evidence for a maximum “shelf-life” of oocytes in mammals suggests that human menopause may be an implication of meiotic arrest |
topic | Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6148287/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30237413 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-018-32502-2 |
work_keys_str_mv | AT hubersusanne evidenceforamaximumshelflifeofoocytesinmammalssuggeststhathumanmenopausemaybeanimplicationofmeioticarrest AT fiedermartin evidenceforamaximumshelflifeofoocytesinmammalssuggeststhathumanmenopausemaybeanimplicationofmeioticarrest |