TY - JOUR
T1 - Advanced parental age at conception and sex affects mitochondrial DNA copy number in human and fruit flies
AU - Mengel-From, Jonas
AU - Svane, Anne Marie
AU - Pertoldi, Cino
AU - Kristensen, Torsten Nygård
AU - Loeschcke, Volker
AU - Skytthe, Axel
AU - Christensen, Kaare
AU - Lindahl-Jacobsen, Rune
AU - Hjelmborg, Jacob v. B.
AU - Christiansen, Lene
PY - 2019/11/13
Y1 - 2019/11/13
N2 - Aging is a multifactorial trait caused by early as well as late-life circumstances. A society trend that parents deliberately delay having children is of concern to health professionals, for example as advanced parental age at conception increases disease risk profiles in offspring. We here aim to study if advanced parental age at conception affects mitochondrial DNA content, a cross-species biomarker of general health, in adult human twin offspring and in a model organism. We find no deteriorated mitochondrial DNA content at advanced parental age at conception, but human mitochondrial DNA content was higher in females than males, and the difference was twofold higher at advanced maternal age at conception. Similar parental age effects and sex-specific differences in mitochondrial DNA content were found in Drosophila melanogaster. In addition, parental longevity in humans associates with both mitochondrial DNA content and parental age at conception; thus, we carefully propose that a poorer disease risk profile from advanced parental age at conception might be surpassed by superior effects of parental successful late-life reproduction that associate with parental longevity.
AB - Aging is a multifactorial trait caused by early as well as late-life circumstances. A society trend that parents deliberately delay having children is of concern to health professionals, for example as advanced parental age at conception increases disease risk profiles in offspring. We here aim to study if advanced parental age at conception affects mitochondrial DNA content, a cross-species biomarker of general health, in adult human twin offspring and in a model organism. We find no deteriorated mitochondrial DNA content at advanced parental age at conception, but human mitochondrial DNA content was higher in females than males, and the difference was twofold higher at advanced maternal age at conception. Similar parental age effects and sex-specific differences in mitochondrial DNA content were found in Drosophila melanogaster. In addition, parental longevity in humans associates with both mitochondrial DNA content and parental age at conception; thus, we carefully propose that a poorer disease risk profile from advanced parental age at conception might be surpassed by superior effects of parental successful late-life reproduction that associate with parental longevity.
KW - Drosophila
KW - Gender differences
KW - Human aging
KW - Mitochondria
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85074961503&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1093/gerona/glz070
DO - 10.1093/gerona/glz070
M3 - Journal article
SN - 1079-5006
VL - 74
SP - 1853
EP - 1860
JO - Journals of Gerontology. Series A: Biological Sciences & Medical Sciences
JF - Journals of Gerontology. Series A: Biological Sciences & Medical Sciences
IS - 12
M1 - glz070
ER -