Felicia Chen
Pronouns: she/her
Research Mentor(s): Longhua Guo
Research Mentor School/College/Department: Molecular and Integrative Physiology; Geriatrics Center / Medicine
Program: UROPF
Session: Session 2 (10:00am – 10:50am)
Authors:
Abstract
Reproductive senescence is the decline in reproductive success as one increases in aging, which impacts millions of women every year in their planning of family life and career. The question of whether it is possible to reverse reproductive senescence or extend reproductive lifespan remains unclear. The Guo lab uses the model system of freshwater planarians, Schmidtea mediterranea, to explore this question. The planarians are long-lived hermaphrodites and have abundant adult stem cells in their bodies to support whole tissue regenerative capacity. The project aims to determine if these long-lived sexual planarians will reach reproductive senescence; and if so, how long it would take for the fertility to drop. In the lab, multiple different genetic strains have been maintained with care to see how much the fertility changes over time for the study of reproductive senescence. We monitor the reproductive lifespan by tracking their fertility weekly: the recorded number of eggs produced, the number of eggs hatched, and the number of hatchlings produced. The results revealed that fertility dropped at different rates in different strains. In one of the strains, it takes approximately four months to reach senescence, while in the other strain, the planarian can take up to two years for it to reach it. The findings will lay the foundations for future projects on the regulations of fertility by stem cells and age. Identifying specific genes or pathways involved in regulating reproductive senescence, or testing potential interventions to delay or reverse the decline in fertility will greatly benefit humanity.
