DUGi

Efectes de l’edat materna en la capacitat fecundant de l’oòcit

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Currently, the shift in people’s mindset, lifestyle and labour opportunities has led to an increasing trend towards delayed childbearing. Due to this increase in the number of women deciding to get pregnant at ages older than the optimal and having been demonstrated the existence of a negative correlation between aging and women’s fertility, oocytes from older women have become the subject of study, as it is known that, because of the process of ovarian aging, oocytes undergo a decline in quality. This decline in oocyte quality with ageing arises from the adverse effects of certain molecular processes and mechanisms that occur in the oocyte. The processes that have been demonstrated to compromise the oocyte quality and that have been assessed in this dissertation are the loss of chromosome cohesion; mitochondrial dysfunction, which leads to an excessive accumulation of ROS and, consequently, oxidative stress; the spindle instability and the mistaken chromosome segregation, which are highly related with the appearance of aneuploidies; and, finally, the DNA damage, that underlies meiosis errors. As the delay in childbearing is becoming more popular, more women need to draw on assisted reproductive technologies (ART) to achieve their desire to become mothers. Nevertheless, not only can the diminished quality of their oocytes make the process of getting pregnant more difficult, but it can even lead to infertility. Because of that, the study of new therapeutic approaches and strategies to reverse or mitigate the decline in quality and fertility in older women has become necessary, opening a new avenue of research. While some strategies have been discussed herein, like the supplementation with certain antioxidants and other types of molecules, such as melatonin, apocynin, CNP or NMN, further investigation is needed to thoroughly understand the problem of the declining quality and fertility in women, as none of the strategies referred to in this work represent a final solution to the problem mentioned

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