Ovarian transcriptome associated with reproductive senescence in the long-living Ames dwarf mice

•The ovarian reserve is three times larger in Ames dwarf (df/df) mice than normal (N) mice.•More genes were differentially expressed during aging in N than df/df mice.•Inflammatory response genes were up-regulated with aging in N mice.•Inflammatory response genes were down-regulated in old df mice compared to N mice.•DNA damage and repairing genes were down-regulated with aging in both genotypes.

The aim of the current work was to evaluate the ovarian follicle reserve and the ovarian transcriptome in Ames dwarf (df/df) mice. The results suggest a delayed ovarian aging in df/df mice compared to normal (N) mice. Although a high number of genes were differentially expressed during aging of N mice, only a small fraction of these changed with aging in df/df mice. These alterations involved more than 500 categorized biological processes. The majority of these biological processes, including inflammatory/immune responses, were up-regulated with aging in N mice, while old df/df mice were characterized by down-regulation of these same processes in comparison to age matched N mice. However, biological processes related to DNA damage and repairing were commonly down-regulated with aging in both genotypes. In conclusion, delayed ovarian aging in long-living df/df mice was associated with reduced expression of genes related to the inflammatory and immune responses.