| Literature DB >> 18453535 |
Keizo Tokuhiro1, Mika Hirose, Yasushi Miyagawa, Akira Tsujimura, Shinji Irie, Ayako Isotani, Masaru Okabe, Yoshiro Toyama, Chizuru Ito, Kiyotaka Toshimori, Ken Takeda, Shigeru Oshio, Hitoshi Tainaka, Junji Tsuchida, Akihiko Okuyama, Yoshitake Nishimune, Hiromitsu Tanaka.
Abstract
Meichroacidin (MCA) is a highly hydrophilic protein that contains the membrane occupation and recognition nexus motif. MCA is expressed during the stages of spermatogenesis from pachytene spermatocytes to mature sperm development and is localized in the male meiotic metaphase chromosome and sperm flagellum. MCA sequences are highly conserved in Ciona intestinalis, Cyprinus carpio, and mammals. To investigate the physiological role of MCA, we generated MCA-disrupted mutant mice; homozygous MCA mutant males were infertile, but females were not. Sperm was rarely observed in the caput epididymidis of MCA mutant males. However, little to no difference was seen in testis mass between wild-type and mutant mice. During sperm morphogenesis, elongated spermatids had retarded flagellum formation and might increase phagocytosis by Sertoli cells. Immunohistochemical analysis revealed that MCA interacts with proteins located on the outer dense fibers of the flagellum. The testicular sperm of MCA mutant mice was capable of fertilizing eggs successfully via intracytoplasmic sperm injection and generated healthy progeny. Our results suggest that MCA is essential for sperm flagellum formation and the production of functional sperm.Entities:
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Year: 2008 PMID： 18453535 DOI： 10.1074/jbc.M708590200
Source DB: PubMed Journal: J Biol Chem ISSN： 0021-9258 Impact factor: 5.157