Kinetochore microtubule establishment is defective in oocytes from aged mice

Errors in chromosome segregation in mammalian oocytes increase in number with advancing maternal age, and are a major cause of pregnancy loss. Why chromosome segregation errors are more common in oocytes from older females remains poorly understood. In mitosis, accurate chromosome segregation is enabled by attachment of kinetochores to microtubules from appropriate spindle poles, and erroneous attachments increase the likelihood of mis-segregation. Whether attachment errors are responsible for age-related oocyte aneuploidy is unknown. Here we report that oocytes from naturally aged mice exhibit substantially increased chromosome misalignment, and fewer kinetochore pairs that make stable end-on attachments to the appropriate spindle poles compared with younger oocytes. The profile of mis-attachments exhibited is consistent with the types of chromosome segregation error observed in aged oocytes. Loss of chromosome cohesion, which is a feature of oocytes from older females, causes altered kinetochore geometry in meiosis-I. However, this has only a minor impact upon MT attachment, indicating that cohesion loss is not the primary cause of aneuploidy in meiosis-I. In meiosis-II, on the other hand, age-related cohesion loss plays a direct role in errors, since prematurely individualized sister chromatids misalign and misattach to spindle MTs. Thus, whereas cohesion loss leading to precocious sister chromatid separation is a direct cause of errors in meiosis-II, cohesion loss plays a more minor role in the etiology of aneuploidy in meiosis-I. Our data introduce altered MT-kinetochore interactions as a lesion that explains aneuploidy in meiosis-I in older females.