Molecular Biology of Reproduction and Development Research Group, Departament de Biomedicina, Facultat de Medicina i Ciències de la Salut, Institut d'Investigacions Biomèdiques August Pi i Sunyer (IDIBAPS), Fundació Clínic per a la Recerca Biomèdica, Universitat de Barcelona (UB), Barcelona, Spain.
Biochemistry and Molecular Genetics Service, Biomedical Diagnostic Center (CDB), Hospital Clínic de Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain.
Hum Reprod. 2023 Dec 4;38(12):2312-2320. doi: 10.1093/humrep/dead170.
Proteomic methodologies offer a robust approach to identify and quantify thousands of proteins from semen components in both fertile donors and infertile patients. These strategies provide an unprecedented discovery potential, which many research teams are currently exploiting. However, it is essential to follow a suitable experimental design to generate robust data, including proper purification of samples, appropriate technical procedures to increase identification throughput, and data analysis following quality criteria. More than 6000 proteins have been described so far through proteomic analyses in the mature sperm cell, increasing our knowledge on processes involved in sperm function, intercommunication between spermatozoa and seminal fluid, and the transcriptional origin of the proteins. These data have been complemented with comparative studies to ascertain the potential role of the identified proteins on sperm maturation and functionality, and its impact on infertility. By comparing sperm protein profiles, many proteins involved in the acquisition of fertilizing ability have been identified. Furthermore, altered abundance of specific protein groups has been observed in a wide range of infertile phenotypes, including asthenozoospermia, oligozoospermia, and normozoospermia with unsuccessful assisted reproductive techniques outcomes, leading to the identification of potential clinically useful protein biomarkers. Finally, proteomics has been used to evaluate alterations derived from semen sample processing, which might have an impact on fertility treatments. However, the intrinsic heterogeneity and inter-individual variability of the semen samples have resulted in a relatively low overlap among proteomic reports, highlighting the relevance of combining strategies for data validation and applying strict criteria for proteomic data analysis to obtain reliable results. This mini-review provides an overview of the most critical steps to conduct robust sperm proteomic studies, the most relevant results obtained so far, and potential next steps to increase the impact of sperm proteomic data.
蛋白质组学方法为鉴定和定量来自生育能力正常和不育患者精液成分中的数千种蛋白质提供了一种强大的方法。这些策略提供了前所未有的发现潜力，许多研究团队正在利用这些潜力。然而，遵循合适的实验设计以生成稳健的数据至关重要，包括样品的适当纯化、增加鉴定通量的适当技术程序以及遵循质量标准的数据分析。迄今为止，通过成熟精子细胞中的蛋白质组学分析已经描述了超过 6000 种蛋白质，这增加了我们对精子功能、精子与精液之间的相互通讯以及蛋白质转录起源过程的了解。这些数据已经通过比较研究得到了补充，以确定鉴定蛋白质在精子成熟和功能中的潜在作用及其对不育症的影响。通过比较精子蛋白图谱，已经鉴定出许多与获得受精能力相关的蛋白。此外，在广泛的不育表型中，包括弱精症、少精症和正常形态精子症，以及不成功的辅助生殖技术结果中，观察到特定蛋白组的丰度发生改变，从而鉴定出潜在的临床有用的蛋白生物标志物。最后，蛋白质组学已被用于评估精液样本处理引起的变化，这些变化可能会对生育治疗产生影响。然而，精液样本的内在异质性和个体间变异性导致蛋白质组学报告之间的重叠相对较低，突出了结合策略进行数据验证和应用严格的蛋白质组学数据分析标准以获得可靠结果的重要性。这篇迷你综述提供了进行稳健精子蛋白质组学研究的最关键步骤、迄今为止获得的最相关结果以及增加精子蛋白质组学数据影响的潜在下一步的概述。
