de Mateo Sara, Martínez-Heredia Juan, Estanyol Josep Maria, Domínguez-Fandos David, Vidal-Taboada José Manuel, Ballescà José Luis, Oliva Rafael
Human Genetics Research Group, IDIBAPS, Faculty of Medicine, University of Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain.
Proteomics. 2007 Dec;7(23):4264-77. doi: 10.1002/pmic.200700521.
The present work was started to explore whether a correlation could be detected among proteomic expression, protamine content and DNA integrity in human sperm cells. Towards this goal, we extracted the proteins present in the sperm cells from 47 sperm samples from infertile patients and from ten semen donors, analysed each sample by 2-D gel electrophoresis, and quantified the expression of 101 spots identified by MALDI-TOF analysis. Additionally, the protamine content and DNA integrity were also determined. Several interesting proteins such as transcription factors, prohibitin, heat shock and proteasome proteins have been identified. We have found that the expression of an important number of proteins (58 different 2-D spots) is correlated in independent sperm samples at high statistical significance (p<0.001 and r>0.5). Additionally, eight proteins have also been found to correlate with DNA integrity and seven with protamine content (p<0.05). To our knowledge, this is the first report describing the correlation between proteomics, DNA integrity and protamine content. It also sheds new light into the fundamental aspects of the human sperm and points to new potential proteins involved in male infertility.
开展本研究是为了探索人类精子细胞的蛋白质组表达、鱼精蛋白含量和DNA完整性之间是否存在相关性。为实现这一目标，我们从47例不育患者的精子样本和10例精液捐献者的样本中提取了精子细胞中的蛋白质，通过二维凝胶电泳对每个样本进行分析，并对经基质辅助激光解吸电离飞行时间（MALDI-TOF）分析鉴定出的101个斑点的表达进行定量。此外，还测定了鱼精蛋白含量和DNA完整性。已鉴定出几种有趣的蛋白质，如转录因子、抑制素、热休克蛋白和蛋白酶体蛋白。我们发现，大量蛋白质（58个不同的二维斑点）的表达在独立的精子样本中具有高度统计学意义的相关性（p<0.001且r>0.5）。此外，还发现8种蛋白质与DNA完整性相关，7种与鱼精蛋白含量相关（p<0.05）。据我们所知，这是第一份描述蛋白质组学、DNA完整性和鱼精蛋白含量之间相关性的报告。它也为人类精子的基本方面提供了新的线索，并指出了与男性不育相关的新的潜在蛋白质。
