Is Age-Related Decline in Female Fertility A Mitochondrial Dysfunction?

In humans, the fertility in female declines slowly from the age of 30 years [1,2]. Embryo implanting ability and survival start declining gradually after 30 years of age, but by more than two thirds after 40 years and in younger women with reduced ovarian reserve [3]. While decline in the frequency of intercourse is one of the reasons, reduction in the quality of either the embryos arising from ageing oocytes due to higher incidence of oocyte aneuploidy or the older uterus have been implicated as the probable causes. Controversy still exists about which one of these is the main cause or whether both of them play a role together [1-6]. While the suboptimal quality of the ageing oocytes and/or older uterus may be responsible for the age-related decline in female fertility, it is not clear why the functional quality of the uterus or the oocytes declines with increasing age. Recent researches have indicated the role of oxygen radical damage to the mitochondria in the somatic cells leading to mitochondrial dysfunction as the possible cause of the ageing process. In this article, a possible role of agerelated mitochondrial dysfunction in the ageing oocytes and/or the uterus has been proposed to be the cause of the age-related decline in female fertility.