Bone morphogenetic protein 2 (BMP2) mediates spermatogenesis in Chinese mitten crab Eriocheir sinensis by regulating kinesin motor KIFC1 expression.

The TGF-beta superfamily is widely involved in cell events such as cell division and differentiation, while bone morphogenetic proteins (BMPs) belong to one of the subgroups. Their functions in crustacean spermatogenesis are still unknown. In this study, we first identified the bone morphogenetic protein 2 (bmp2) from Eriocheir sinensis (E. sinensis) testis. The es-BMP2 shows high expression in E. sinensis testis. We found that es-BMP2 is expressed in spermatids. The successfully knockdown of es-BMP2 through in vivo RNAi are used for functional analysis. Compared with the control group, the proportion of abnormal nuclear cup morphology in mature spermatozoa increased significantly after es-bmp2 RNAi, suggesting that es-BMP2 plays an important role in mature sperm morphogenesis. Immunofluorescence results confirm this finding. In order to study the specific mechanism of es-BMP2 involved in spermiogenesis, we tested kinesin-14 KIFC1, which functions in the nucleus formation of spermatozoa in E. sinensis. The results showed that knockdown of es-BMP2 caused a significant decrease of es-KIFC1 expression. We further performed es-bmp2 knockdown in vitro in primary cultured testis cells. es-KIFC1 expression was significantly reduced after es-bmp2 RNAi. The above results indicate that es-BMP2 participates in maintaining the spermiogenesis of E. sinensis by regulating es-KIFC1 expression.