Why older fathers might pass on more mutations to offsprings

Scientists have described why older male fruit flies are more likely to pass mutations onto their offspring in a new study, potentially shedding light on the risk of inherited-disease in humans.

The male reproductive system serves as a hotspot for the emergence of new genes. Perhaps that explains why more new mutations are inherited from fathers than from mothers.

This does not, however, clarify why older fathers pass on more mutations than younger ones do. The mechanisms that might underlie these well-documented trends have long remained a mystery, the study said.

Researchers at the Rockefeller University, US, studied mutations that occur during the production of sperm from germline cells, known as spermatogenesis.

They found that mutations are common in the testes of both young and old fruit flies, but more abundant in older flies from the outset.

Moreover, many of these mutations seem to be removed in younger fruit flies during spermatogenesis by the body’s genomic repair mechanisms – but they fail to be fixed in the testes of older flies.

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