Transplantation of young ovaries restored cardioprotective influence in postreproductive-aged mice

What is it about?

In this study, postreproductive-aged female mice with senescent ovaries received new ovaries through transplantation of young ovaries from young mice. Recipients of new ovaries displayed restoration of youthful levels of health, a sharp decrease in evidence of significant cardiomyopathy at death, and a significantly increased mean life span. Interestingly, among mice that died with evidence of significant cardiomyopathy, the mean age at death for transplant recipients mirrored that found in the sham transplanted mice, with only a 13-day variation between experimental and control groups. One might be tempted by this observation to embrace this narrow range of ages as dedicated for ‘death-by-CVD’. An observation providing a disconnect between age at death and CVD is seen when the intact transplant group is divided into mice that were cycling and mice that were acyclic at transplant. Cycling recipients displayed only a modest increase in mean lifespan, but displayed the greatest decrease in significant cardiomyopathy at death. In contrast, mice that were acyclic produced the greatest increase in mean lifespan, but displayed only a slight decrease in cardiovascular-related pathology. Among these two groups, transplant recipients with the largest decrease in evidence of cardiomyopathy also displayed the smallest amount of life span extension. The opposite is true for atrial thrombosis. Decreased evidence of thrombosis at death is closely correlated with the observed increase in lifespan. Ovariectomized mice with no ovarian influence displayed the shortest lifespan, the earliest age at death with cardiomyopathy, and the greatest incidence of cardiovascular fibrosis and atrial thrombosis of any group. Restoration of ovarian influence may, in effect, have postponed the advance of age-associated cardiomyopathy to a point where the disease was subclinical during the lifetime of the transplant recipients. In the current study, ovarian transplantation and ovariectomy clearly demonstrated the influence of reproductive function on cardiovascular health, that the relationship between chronological aging and cardiovascular disease can be improved and that reproductive function is a likely candidate for future research in the prevention of cardiovascular-related pathologies.

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