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Sphingosine 1-phosphate preserves fertility in irradiated female mice without propagating genomic damage in offspring

Nature Medicine volume 8, pages 901–902 (2002)Cite this article

A Corrigendum to this article was published on 01 November 2002

To the editor

Ovarian failure and infertility are routine side effects of anti-cancer therapy, due to the extreme sensitivity of oocytes to the lethal effects of radiation and chemotherapeutic drugs1. Recently, we reported that ceramide mediates apoptosis of oocytes exposed to anti-cancer therapies, and that its metabolite, sphingosine 1-phosphate (S1P), prevents this oocyte death in vivo2. However, pharmacological protection of the ovaries, if possible, may not be desirable, as current concepts suggest that deletion of DNA-damaged oocytes may serve to maintain genomic integrity and thus prevent genetic anomalies in progeny of irradiated mothers3.

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Figure 1: S1P preserves fertility without propagating genomic damage.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Laboratory of Signal Transduction, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, New York, New York, USA

    François Paris & Richard Kolesnick

  2. Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Vincent Center for Reproductive Biology, Massachusetts General Hospital/Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA

    Gloria I. Perez & Jonathan L. Tilly

  3. Department of Radiation Oncology, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, New York, New York, USA

    Zvi Fuks & Adriana Haimovitz-Friedman

  4. Department of Pathology, Cornell University Medical College, New York, New York, USA

    Hai Nguyen

  5. Department of Radiation Oncology, University of Maryland, Baltimore, Maryland, USA

    Mousumi Bose & William F. Morgan

  6. Department of Genetics, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio, USA

    Arlene Ilagan & Patricia A. Hunt

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  1. François Paris
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  2. Gloria I. Perez
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Correspondence to Jonathan L. Tilly or Richard Kolesnick.

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Paris, F., Perez, G., Fuks, Z. et al. Sphingosine 1-phosphate preserves fertility in irradiated female mice without propagating genomic damage in offspring. Nat Med 8, 901–902 (2002). https://doi.org/10.1038/nm0902-901

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