New roundworm research discovered that exposure to male pheromones inhibits the aging of female eggs. Pheromone exposure reduced offspring mortality and chromosomal abnormalities by a factor of two.
The small translucent roundworm C. elegans was employed in the latest study, which is a well-established model organism often used in biology studies.
Male pheromones reduced the aging of female roundworm egg cells, resulting in healthier progeny.
Shifting energies to their reproduction
(Photo : BEHROUZ MEHRI/AFP via Getty Images)
(Photo : BEHROUZ MEHRI/AFP via Getty Images)
The exposure reduced embryonic mortality by more than twice and reduced chromosomal abnormalities in surviving children by more than twofold.
Egg cells seemed younger and healthier under the microscope, rather than small and malformed, as is normal with age.
The researchers believe that this discovery might lead to pharmaceutical therapies to treat human infertility by enhancing egg cell quality and delaying the onset of reproductive age.
Everyone is affected by reproductive aging, according to Northwestern's Ilya Ruvinsky, who conducted the study, as per ScienceDaily.
One of the earliest indicators of biological aging is a decline in the quality of reproductive cells, which leads to lower fertility, a rise in fetal abnormalities such as miscarriages, and finally loss of fertility. Male pheromones improved the eggs in every way we could think of.
The researchers aged female roundworms in the presence of a pheromone typically generated by male roundworms. The researchers discovered that egg quality was greater in females exposed to the pheromone than in control roundworms that were not exposed to the signal.
Although constant exposure to male pheromones was most effective, even brief exposure enhanced egg quality.
This conclusion, according to Ruvinsky, can be explained by the animals' "changing energy budgets."
Pheromones are substances that animals generate and release to elicit social reactions from other members of their species.
Pheromones, according to Ruvinsky, also teach animals how to spend their limited energy.
Read more: Study Explains Why Presence of Males Shorten Female Lifespans in Some Species
Plant defenses are activated by worm pheromones
Plants can detect parasite roundworms in the soil by picking up on their chemical signals, according to a team of researchers from Cornell University's Boyce Thompson Institute for Plant Research (BTI).
Plants engage their immune system to protect themselves when they detect pheromones released by nematode worms.
However, the chemical alert activates defenses not only against nematodes, but also against bacterial, fungal, and viral infections.
Nematodes, which are small, common roundworms, interact with one another using chemical pheromones known as ascarosides.
These secreted substances influence the growth and behavior of worms. Scientists have found over 200 distinct ascarosides from a broad variety of nematode species, demonstrating that ascarosides are an evolutionarily ancient form of chemical communication, as per Cornell University.
When a parasite class has been producing the same chemicals for millions of years, this may learn how to recognize those molecules.
This appears to have happened with plants, which have likely been under nematode attack for hundreds of millions of years, according to BTI professor Frank C. Schroeder.
BTI researchers studied many of the most destructive plant-parasitic nematode species and discovered that they all generate the same ascaroside, known as ascr#18.
Plants may have learned to recognize this prevalent ascaroside, they suggested.
To put this theory to the test, the researchers immersed the roots of tomato, potato, barley, and Arabidopsis thaliana a laboratory plant in water laced with a trace quantity of ascr#18.
They next exposed the plants to various pests and diseases and assessed the damage that resulted.
Related article: Researchers' Understanding of Color 'Upended' by an Eyeless Worm
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