Researchers confirmed that sperm accumulate mutations over the years, increasing the risk of transmitting diseases to offspring.

Human semen not only accumulates genetic mutations with age; as the percentage of sperm carrying potentially serious mutations increases, so does the risk of developing diseases in offspring.

This is according to a new study by researchers at the Sanger Institute and King's College London. The team sequenced semen samples from individuals between the ages of 24 and 75, using very high-precision technologies, and found that the male germ line (the line of cells that produce sperm) is subject to a combination of mutation and positive selection.

The scientists used a duplex sequencing technique called NanoSeq, which can detect rare mutations with a very low margin of error. This allowed them to analyze 81 sperm samples from 57 donors. The results showed that a man's sperm adds an average of 1.67 new mutations every year.

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