speaker:
Dr Francisco Ubeda
(Royal Holloway)
building: Bute
room: Lecture Theatre D
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additional details
host/contact: andy.gardner
Menopause is the transition from reproductive to non-reproductive life well before natural death. Rather than involving a smooth, rapid change, it is normally preceded by a long period of erratic hormonal fluctuations that are accompanied by a plethora of unpleasant symptoms. Here we suggest that this turbulent period owes to a conflict of interest, between a woman’s maternally-inherited and paternally-inherited genes, over the trade-off between personal reproduction and cooperative care of neighbours’ young. We formulate a mathematical model of kin selection in a demographically structured population showing that there is conflict over fertility between genes with different parental origin. We formulate two mathematical models of game theory showing that this conflict is resolved through two alternative gene expression strategies: expression of one copy and silencing of the other (classic genomic imprinting), and random expression of one copy and constant expression of the other (novel form of genomic imprinting). These two forms of conflict resolution help explaining the unpleasant symptoms of menopause. We investigate which of these symptoms are expected to be caused by the maternally-inherited versus the paternally-inherited genes. We show that demographic differences between ancestral human populations may explain the variability in age of onset of menopause, and the variability of symptoms observed among different ethnic groups during the period of time preceding menopause. Our model informs the assessment of a woman’s risk of developing osteoporosis and cardiovascular disease, suggests epigenetic therapies for preventing breast and ovarian cancers, and provides guidance on family planning based upon a woman’s ancestral background.
refID: 1330
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