Preventing age-associated egg aneuploidy
Designing protein-based artificial kinetochores as decoys to prevent meiotic errors in oocytes
Yuanzhuo Zhou, Kohei Asai, Hirohisa Kyogoku, Tomoya S. Kitajima
Nat Cell Biol. 2025
As women age, the frequency of egg aneuploidy increases. This phenomenon represents one of the biggest barriers in fertility treatment. In this study, we successfully suppressed aneuploidy in eggs from aged mice. By developing a protein-based artificial kinetochore to fine-tune the pulling forces exerted by microtubules on chromosomes, we prevented premature chromosome separation, a major cause of age-associated aneuploidy. These effects facilitated the production of euploid eggs. These findings open a new avenue for future applications in infertility treatment.
DOI : 10.1038/s41556-025-01792-w
