Back

Mechanistic target of rapamycin/blood-testes barrier mechanism mediates acceleration of sperm epigenetic aging by environmental factors

Arowolo, O.; Oluwayiose, O. A.; Zhu, J.; Sergeyev, O.; Houle, E.; Pilsner, J. R.; Suvorov, A.

2025-03-01 molecular biology
10.1101/2025.02.25.640214 bioRxiv
Show abstract

Our previous research suggested that mechanistic target of rapamycin (mTOR)/blood-testis barrier (BTB) mechanism is involved in the regulation of the rates of epigenetic aging of sperm, where increased activity of mTORC1 opens BTB and accelerates epigenetic aging and increased activity of mTORC2 produces opposite results - increases BTB integrity and rejuvenates sperm epigenome. In the present study, we use our newly developed epigenetic clock model to investigate whether the mTOR/BTB mechanism is involved in the epigenetic reprogramming of sperm in mice exposed to heat stress (HS) and cadmium (Cd). Our findings show that both mTOR-dependent BTB disruption caused by HS and mTOR-independent BTB disruption due to Cd exposure accelerate sperm epigenetic aging, resulting in similar changes to sperm DNA methylation patterns. These results suggest that the mTOR/BTB mechanism is a novel molecular pathway through which environmental stressors influence sperm epigenetic aging, and this pathway may be relevant to a broad range of factors, including environmental, lifestyle, dietary, and health influences.

Matching journals

The top 7 journals account for 50% of the predicted probability mass.

1
GeroScience
○ 109 papers in training set
Top 0.1%
13.1%
Similar papers in this journal
2
Aging
○ 75 papers in training set
Top 0.1%
12.8%
Similar papers in this journal
3
International Journal of Molecular Sciences
○ 494 papers in training set
Top 0.7%
6.8%
Similar papers in this journal
4
PLOS ONE
● 5266 papers in training set
Top 25%
6.3%
Similar papers in this journal
5
Aging Cell
○ 165 papers in training set
Top 0.6%
5.5%
Similar papers in this journal
6
Epigenetics
○ 50 papers in training set
Top 0.1%
5.2%
7
Clinical Epigenetics
○ 60 papers in training set
Top 0.2%
4.1%
50% of probability mass above
8
Antioxidants
○ 25 papers in training set
Top 0.1%
4.1%
9
Biogerontology
○ 10 papers in training set
Top 0.1%
3.2%
10
Cells
○ 249 papers in training set
Top 1%
2.8%
11
eLife
● 5828 papers in training set
Top 42%
2.4%
12
Epigenetics & Chromatin
52 papers in training set
Top 0.3%
2.1%
13
The Journals of Gerontology, Series A: Biological Sciences and Medical Sciences
◐ 26 papers in training set
Top 0.3%
1.8%
14
Scientific Reports
○ 3612 papers in training set
Top 51%
1.8%
15
Biomolecules
○ 100 papers in training set
Top 1%
1.7%
16
Gene
○ 46 papers in training set
Top 0.9%
1.5%
17
Frontiers in Aging
○ 11 papers in training set
Top 0.1%
1.5%
18
Advanced Biology
○ 29 papers in training set
Top 0.4%
1.1%
19
Biochemistry and Biophysics Reports
○ 30 papers in training set
Top 0.7%
1.1%
20
Human Molecular Genetics
◐ 141 papers in training set
Top 3%
0.9%
21
The FASEB Journal
○ 194 papers in training set
Top 6%
0.9%
22
FEBS Open Bio
○ 31 papers in training set
Top 1%
0.6%
23
Nature Communications
○ 5641 papers in training set
Top 58%
0.6%
24
Frontiers in Marine Science
○ 62 papers in training set
Top 1%
0.6%
25
Genes
○ 144 papers in training set
Top 4%
0.6%

"Similar papers" are the closest papers from that journal in the model's embedding space. They show what the match is built on, but the ranking comes mostly from a classifier over the whole training set, not from these examples alone.