Fig. 1.

The female reproductive system displays rapid age-related decline in sperm-replete C. elegans. (A) Number of progeny produced in 24 h intervals by a wild-type self-fertile (gray) and mated (red) hermaphrodite (n=11, 12). Day 0 is defined as L4 stage. Black points indicate the percentage survival of wild-type mated hermaphrodites (n=54); reproduced, with permission, from Pickett et al. (2013). (See Table S1 for statistics.) (B) Diagram of young adult germ cell mitotic cell cycle and meiotic entry. Percentages represent the proportion of the cell cycle spent in each phase (Fox et al., 2011). (C) One of two gonad arms of the young adult hermaphrodite. Cells progress from mitotic cycling to meiotic prophase to meiotic maturation before being fertilized by sperm in the spermatheca (yellow). The progenitor zone (red, defined by WAPL-1 staining) contains mitotically cycling stem cells. The distal tip cell (nucleus in red, as are other somatic gonad cells) provides GLP-1/Notch signal to maintain the germline stem cell fate.