To better understand the role of maternal effects on aging, we examined the influence of maternal age on offspring lifespan, fecundity, and response to interventions in the rotifer, Brachionus manjavacas. Rotifers are microscopic, aquatic invertebrates with many advantages as a model system for aging, including simple culture, transparency, sequenced genomes and transcriptomes, and RNAi. Rotifers have not undergone the evolutionary genome reduction that characterizes D. melanogaster and C. elegans, allowing investigation of human homologs that cannot be studied in established invertebrate systems. Offspring of older mothers had decreased lifespan, fecundity, and stress resistance compared to offspring of younger mothers. Changes in offspring mitochondrial number and morphology suggest an accumulation of damaged mitochondria with increasing maternal age contributes to lower offspring fitness. Maternal caloric restriction increases offspring lifespan and fecundity without direct offspring exposure to CR. Our ongoing work aims to characterize the cellular mechanisms driving maternal effects on offspring aging.
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