Researchers have identified a protein in women that destroys unfertilized eggs with genetic damage, an important step in discovering how to treat infertility, according to a study in the journal Nature.
The protein, p63, guards against irregularities that could cause diseases in children by detecting and killing eggs with genetic mutations - the first mechanism found to control which unfertilized eggs survive, according to the study.
The research could help physicians treat female infertility, which affects as much as 12 per cent of the world’s population and isn’t believed to be hereditary, said Frank McKeon, a Harvard Medical School cell-biology professor who worked on the study.
“Monitoring levels of p63 is an important first step in discovering the reasons behind infertility,” Professor McKeon said. “There hasn’t been a DNA chain discovered that has had such a critical role.”
Infertility occurs when a woman doesn’t have enough reproductive eggs to be fertilized, and researchers haven’t been able to pinpoint why some women have more eggs than others. Most agree chemotherapy kills eggs, and environmental and metabolic factors may contribute as well.
Professor McKeon’s team tested the p63 protein by removing it from female mice and giving them chemotherapy. Some eggs in mice without the protein survived, albeit damaged, allowing the females to become pregnant. Unaltered mice that underwent chemotherapy had no surviving eggs and were infertile.
The team plans to investigate whether the gene can repair mildly damaged eggs, as early research suggests, McKeon said. No direct link has yet been made to show how p63 could be used to increase fertility, Professor McKeon said.
Source: The West Australian
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