In contrast to women, men are fertile throughout life, but research at the University of Gothenburg has now shown that a fertilising sperm can get help from the egg to rejuvenate. The result is an important step towards future stem cell therapy.
The risk of chromosomal abnormalities in the foetus is highly correlated to the age of the mother, but is nearly independent of the age of the father. One possible explanation is that egg cells have a unique ability to reset the age of a sperm.
"We are the first to show that egg cells have the ability to rejuvenate other cells, and this is an important result for future stem cell research", says Associate Professor Tomas Simonsson, who leads the research group at the the University of Gothenburg that has made this discovery.

Each time a cell divides, the genetic material at the ends of the chromosomes becomes shorter. The ends of the chromosomes, known as "telomeres", are important for the genetic stability of the cell and they act...