Fertility of Aged Human Egg Cells Can Be Extended With Anti-viral Drugs

Women are potentially born with 1-2 million eggs. The formation of a human egg in a female body begins in the mother’s womb and reaches a certain number on average during adolescence.

In this direction, it develops in such a way that it can be fertilized with the effect of the hormones secreted, and it decreases with a cycle that takes place every month and lasts until the period we call the menopause period. In other words, when women are born, they are born with a potential number of eggs, and these eggs cannot be renewed like other cells, and the body cannot produce more egg cells.

The safest age range for pregnancy is defined as 20 to 35 years of age for women. Women over 35 can also get pregnant easily. But as you get older, the pregnancy process gets a little more complicated. Because infertility problems in women increase with age, the time needed to get pregnant is longer.

Rejuvenating the age of human egg

But a team of scientists at the Hebrew University in Israel was able to rejuvenate the age of the eggs by using an anti-viral drug on the eggs. These older eggs had the same chromosomes as younger eggs and less damaged DNA. Studies not tested in fertilization could increase fertility over 40 years.

Illustration of sperm and egg cell. 3D illustration Getty Images

In the publication in Aging Cell, they used mouse egg cells. As a woman gets older, her own DNA begins to copy itself inside the cell, damaging her DNA in the egg just like a virus.

It could reverse aging

The author of the study, Hebrew University molecular biologist Dr. Michael Klutstein told The Times of Israel, “Since the attacking DNA behaves like a virus, we hypothesized that the anti-viral drug applied to eggs could reverse aging and rejuvenate them, and we found this to be the case in our lab”.

“We tested hundreds of mouse eggs and then human eggs, which confirmed the hypothesis,” said Klutstein.

Researchers have not yet done a study of adding sperm to eggs, but will soon begin in vitro fertilization (IVF) with rejuvenated mouse eggs. They predict that after animal experiments it will be passed on to humans and within about a decade anti-viral drugs may be used to increase fertility.