Kern, Carina C;
Srivastava, Shivangi;
Ezcurra, Marina;
Hsiung, Kuei Ching;
Hui, Nancy;
Townsend, StJohn;
Maczik, Dominik;
... Gems, David; + view all
(2023)
C. elegans ageing is accelerated by a self-destructive reproductive programme.
Nature Communications
, 14
, Article 4381. 10.1038/s41467-023-40088-1.
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Abstract
In post-reproductive C. elegans, destructive somatic biomass repurposing supports production of yolk which, it was recently shown, is vented and can serve as a foodstuff for larval progeny. This is reminiscent of the suicidal reproductive effort (reproductive death) typical of semelparous organisms such as Pacific salmon. To explore the possibility that C. elegans exhibits reproductive death, we have compared sibling species pairs of the genera Caenorhabditis and Pristionchus with hermaphrodites and females. We report that yolk venting and constitutive, early pathology involving major anatomical changes occur only in hermaphrodites, which are also shorter lived. Moreover, only in hermaphrodites does germline removal suppress senescent pathology and markedly increase lifespan. This is consistent with the hypothesis that C. elegans exhibit reproductive death that is suppressed by germline ablation. If correct, this would imply a major difference in the ageing process between C. elegans and most higher organisms, and potentially explain the exceptional plasticity in C. elegans ageing.
| Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Title: | C. elegans ageing is accelerated by a self-destructive reproductive programme |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| DOI: | 10.1038/s41467-023-40088-1 |
| Publisher version: | https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-023-40088-1 |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | Copyright © The Author(s) 2023. 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 licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence 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 licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/ licenses/by/4.0/. |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Life Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Life Sciences > Div of Biosciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Life Sciences > Div of Biosciences > Genetics, Evolution and Environment |
| URI: | https://discovery-pp.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10170993 |
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