The ovarian microenvironment becomes fibrotic and stiff with age, in part due to increased collagen and decreased hyaluronan. However, the extracellular matrix (ECM) is a complex network of hundreds of proteins, glycoproteins, and glycans which are highly tissue specific and undergo pronounced changes with age.

Cellular senescence and circadian dysregulation are biological hallmarks of aging. Whether they are coordinately regulated has not been thoroughly studied. The researchers hypothesize that BMAL1, a pioneer transcription factor and master regulator of the molecular circadian clock, plays a role in the senescence program…

The researchers examined cell morphology, senescence-associated β-galactosidase (SA-β-gal) activity, cell proliferation, and expression of senescence markers (p16 and p21). RNA sequencing analysis was conducted to compare gene expression profiles between senescent and non-senescent cells…