Primakoff Paul, Myles Diana G
Department of Cell Biology and Human Anatomy, School of Medicine, University of California Davis, Davis, CA 95616, USA.
FEBS Lett. 2007 May 22;581(11):2174-80. doi: 10.1016/j.febslet.2007.02.021. Epub 2007 Feb 20.
The mechanism of sperm-egg fusion in mammals is a research area that has greatly benefited from the use of gene deletion technology. Because fertilization is internal in mammals and the gametes (particularly the eggs) are sparse in number, in vitro studies have considerable limitations. Using gene deletions, a few cell surface proteins in both gametes have been identified as essential for gamete fusion. Ongoing studies are directed at analysis of the function of these proteins and the search for additional proteins that may be involved in this process. So far, no mammalian proteins have been found that also function in sperm-egg fusion of non-mammalian species or in other types of cell-cell fusion.
哺乳动物中精卵融合的机制是一个因使用基因缺失技术而受益匪浅的研究领域。由于哺乳动物的受精过程是在体内进行的，并且配子（尤其是卵子）数量稀少，体外研究存在相当大的局限性。通过基因缺失，已确定配子中的一些细胞表面蛋白对配子融合至关重要。正在进行的研究旨在分析这些蛋白的功能，并寻找可能参与这一过程的其他蛋白。到目前为止，尚未发现有哺乳动物蛋白在非哺乳动物物种的精卵融合或其他类型的细胞-细胞融合中也发挥作用。
