In high-income countries, women tend to give birth at increasingly advanced ages. Despite its physiological, developmental, and medical consequences, why this tendency significantly affects genetic stability of the offspring remains largely unresolved. Accumulating evidence indicates that the higher the age of the mother at fertilization, the more intense the activity of transposable elements causing insertional mutations in functional DNA stretches in her oocyte involved in zygote formation.
Keywords: 5-methylcytosine; aging; epigenetic reprogramming; genomic instability; maternal age; transposon.
© 2022 The Authors. Aging Cell published by the Anatomical Society and John Wiley & Sons Ltd.