Dataset Information

Advanced Paternal Age Affects Sperm Count and Anogenital Distance in Mouse Offspring.

ABSTRACT: In Western society, couples increasingly delay parenthood until later in life. Overall, studies have focused on the reproductive performance of older parents or the impact of advanced maternal age on pregnancy outcomes, but few studies have examined how advanced paternal age (APA) affects offspring health. The aim of this study was to investigate the impact of increasing paternal age on offspring reproductive performance and long-term metabolic health in a mouse model. Here, the same adult B6D2F1/J male mice were mated at 4, 12, and 18 months of age with 6- to 10-week-old naturally cycling CF1 females to generate 3 offspring cohorts conceived at increasing paternal ages PA4, PA12, and PA18. The offspring resulting from mating the same fathers at different ages (n = 20 per age; 10 males and 10 females) were maintained up to 20 weeks of age and morphometric parameters, growth curve, and glucose tolerance were measured. We found that increasing paternal age was associated with a trend toward longer time to conception. Litter sizes were not significantly different. Reassuringly, metabolic parameters and growth curve were not different in the 3 cohorts of offspring. Most importantly, increased paternal age (PA4 vs PA18) was associated with a statistically significant decrease in sperm concentration, sperm motility, and anogenital distance in offspring. These changes raise concerns about the potential impact of APA on the reproductive fitness in males of the next generation.

SUBMITTER: Caballero-Campo P

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6348427 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Advanced Paternal Age Affects Sperm Count and Anogenital Distance in Mouse Offspring.

Caballero-Campo Pedro P Lin Wingka W Simbulan Rhodel R Liu Xiaowei X Feuer Sky S Donjacour Annemarie A Rinaudo Paolo F PF

Reproductive sciences (Thousand Oaks, Calif.) 20180401 4

In Western society, couples increasingly delay parenthood until later in life. Overall, studies have focused on the reproductive performance of older parents or the impact of advanced maternal age on pregnancy outcomes, but few studies have examined how advanced paternal age (APA) affects offspring health. The aim of this study was to investigate the impact of increasing paternal age on offspring reproductive performance and long-term metabolic health in a mouse model. Here, the same adult B6D2F ...[more]

PMID: 29554862

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Project description:The offspring of older fathers have an increased risk of neurodevelopmental disorders such as schizophrenia and autism. It has been proposed that de novo point mutations and copy number variants (CNVs) in the continually dividing spermatogonia underlie this association. In light of the evidence implicating CNVs with schizophrenia and autism, here we use a mouse model to test the hypothesis that the offspring of older males have an increased risk of de novo CNVs. Three-month-old and fourteen- to sixteen-month-old C57BL/6J sires were mated with three-month-old dams to create control offspring and offspring of old sires, respectively. Applying genome-wide microarray screening technology, seven distinct CNVs were identified in a discovery set of twelve offspring and their parents. Competitive quantitative PCR was employed to confirm the variants and establish their frequency in a replication set of 77 offspring and their parents. Six de novo CNVs were detected in the offspring of older sires, while none were detected in the control group. One of the de novo CNVs involved Auts2 (autism susceptibility candidate 2), and other CNVs included genes linked to schizophrenia, autism and brain development. Two of the CNVs were associated with behavioural and/or neuroanatomical phenotypic features. This is the first experimental demonstration that the offspring of older males have more de novo CNVs. The results suggest that offspring of older fathers may be at increased risk of neurodevelopmental disorders such as schizophrenia and autism via the generation of de novo CNV in the male germline. In light of the trends for delayed parenthood in many societies, and in light of the potential for these CNVs to accumulate over subsequent generations, the impact of these mechanisms on the health of future generations warrants closer scrutiny. 2 sires of advanced paternal age (12-16 months of age) and 2 control (3 months of age) sires were mated to dams (3 months of age) to create 6 offspring of advanced paternal age (APA) and 6 control offspring (C), respectively, with an even number of sexes within each group of offspring. A commerical aCGH and a custom CNV array (both supplied by Agilent) were used in combination to detect copy number variations in the genomes of the offspring and their parents. DNA from all male animals was hybridized against a male reference animal and that from all female animals against a female reference animal.

Dataset Information

Advanced Paternal Age Affects Sperm Count and Anogenital Distance in Mouse Offspring.

Publications

Advanced Paternal Age Affects Sperm Count and Anogenital Distance in Mouse Offspring.

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