Research Institute for Microbial Diseases, Osaka University, Suita, Osaka, Japan.
Biol Reprod. 2018 Jul 1;99(1):134-146. doi: 10.1093/biolre/ioy028.
Fifty years have passed since the findings of capacitation and acrosome reaction. These discoveries and the extensive effort of researchers led to the success of in vitro fertilization, which has become a top choice for patients at infertility clinics today. The effort to understand the mechanism of fertilization is ongoing, but the small number of eggs and similarly small quantity of spermatozoa continue to hinder biochemical experiments. The emergence of transgenic animals and gene disruption techniques has had a significant effect on fertilization research. Factors considered important in the early years were shown not to be essential and were replaced by newly found proteins. However, there is much about sperm-egg interaction which remains to be learned before we can outline the mechanism of fertilization. In fact, our understanding of sperm-egg interaction is entering a new stage. Progress in transgenic spermatozoa helped us to observe the behavior of spermatozoa in vivo and/or at the moment of sperm-egg fusion. These advancements are discussed together with the paradigm-shifting research in related fields to help us picture the direction which fertilization research may take in the future.
受精和顶体反应的发现已经过去了五十年。这些发现和研究人员的广泛努力促成了体外受精的成功，这使得它成为当今不孕不育诊所患者的首选。对受精机制的理解仍在继续，但卵子数量少和精子数量少同样继续阻碍着生化实验。转基因动物和基因敲除技术的出现对受精研究产生了重大影响。早期被认为重要的因素后来被证明并非必要，并被新发现的蛋白质所取代。然而，在我们能够概述受精机制之前，还有很多关于精卵相互作用的知识有待我们去了解。事实上，我们对精卵相互作用的理解正在进入一个新的阶段。转基因精子的研究进展帮助我们观察了精子在体内和/或在精卵融合瞬间的行为。本文将讨论这些进展，以及相关领域的范式转变研究，以帮助我们描绘受精研究在未来可能的发展方向。
