Figure 1.

Mutations in the insulin/IGF or TGFβ signaling pathways alleviate many symptoms of female reproductive aging. The outline of an adult hermaphrodite is shown at the top, with the gonad in gray. One arm of the gonad is shown in detail below. The distal tip cell (yellow) promotes mitosis. Developing oocytes are in gray, with the darkness of shading indicating their age. Sperm are shown in blue and are located in the spermatheca. Oocytes are numbered backwards from the proximal end; the -1 oocyte is undergoing maturation and the -2 to -7 oocytes are arrested in diakinesis (the last stage of prophase). Red text indicates the changes that are seen in insulin/IGF or TGFβ pathway mutants.