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Comment
. 2025 Jun 24;23(6):e3003216.
doi: 10.1371/journal.pbio.3003216. eCollection 2025 Jun.

The aging ovary stands on the shoulders of giant multinucleated cells

Avery A Ahmed  1   2 , Stephanie A Pangas  1   2   3
Affiliations
Comment

The aging ovary stands on the shoulders of giant multinucleated cells

Avery A Ahmed et al. PLoS Biol. .

Abstract

Reproductive aging is associated with declining fertility and increasing inflammation, though these events are not well understood. An exciting new study in PLOS Biology utilizes cutting-edge technologies to characterize the role of multinucleated giant cells in ovarian aging.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Figures

Fig 1
Fig 1. Multinucleated giant cells (MNGCs) proliferate with age and show unique transcriptomic profiles.
In ovaries collected from mice and nonhuman primates (NHPs), MNGC penetrance increases with reproductive age (left panel). Transcriptomic profiling of MNGCs reveals the top gene categories as degradation, energy production, and immune processes (right panel top left section). Further, MNGCs are closely associated with T-cells (right panel top right section). Additional transcriptomic analysis segregates MNGCs from macrophages and stromal cells. While stromal cells serve as controls and do not overlap with macrophages or MNGCs, macrophages and MNGCs share expression of macrophage marker F4/80. However, the authors identify Gpnmb as a unique, putative marker of ovarian MNGCs (right panel bottom section). Created in BioRender: Pangas, S. (2025) https://BioRender.com/y3bfssy.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Comment on

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