Batra Vipul, Dagar Komal, Diwakar Maharana Pratap, Kumaresan Arumugam, Kumar Rakesh, Datta Tirtha Kumar
School of Medicine, University of Nottingham, Nottingham, United Kingdom.
Animal Genomics Lab, ICAR-National Dairy Research Institute, Karnal, India.
Front Physiol. 2024 Jun 28;15:1413817. doi: 10.3389/fphys.2024.1413817. eCollection 2024.
Buffalo is a dominant dairy animal in many agriculture-based economies. However, the poor reproductive efficiency (low conception rate) of the buffalo bulls constrains the realization of its full production potential. This in turn leads to economic and welfare issues, especially for the marginal farmers in such economies. The mammalian sperm surface proteins have been implicated in the regulation of survival and function of the spermatozoa in the female reproductive tract (FRT). Nonetheless, the lack of specific studies on buffalo sperm surface makes it difficult for researchers to explore and investigate the role of these proteins in the regulation of mechanisms associated with sperm protection, survival, and function. This study aimed to generate a buffalo sperm surface-specific proteomic fingerprint (LC-MS/MS) and to predict the functional roles of the identified proteins. The three treatments used to remove sperm surface protein viz. Elevated salt, phosphoinositide phospholipase C (PI-PLC) and capacitation led to the identification of N = 1,695 proteins (≥1 high-quality peptide-spectrum matches (PSMs), < 0.05, and FDR<0.01). Almost half of these proteins (N = 873) were found to be involved in crucial processes relevant in the context of male fertility, e.g., spermatogenesis, sperm maturation and protection in the FRT, and gamete interaction or fertilization, amongst others. The extensive sperm-surface proteomic repertoire discovered in this study is unparalleled vis-à-vis the depth of identification of reproduction-specific cell-surface proteins and can provide a potential framework for further studies on the functional aspects of buffalo spermatozoa.
水牛是许多以农业为基础的经济体中的主要乳用动物。然而，水牛公牛的繁殖效率低下（受孕率低）限制了其全部生产潜力的实现。这反过来又导致了经济和福利问题，特别是对于这些经济体中的边际农民而言。哺乳动物精子表面蛋白与精子在雌性生殖道（FRT）中的存活和功能调节有关。尽管如此，由于缺乏对水牛精子表面的具体研究，研究人员难以探索和研究这些蛋白在与精子保护、存活和功能相关机制调节中的作用。本研究旨在生成水牛精子表面特异性蛋白质组指纹图谱（液相色谱-串联质谱法）并预测已鉴定蛋白质的功能作用。用于去除精子表面蛋白的三种处理方法，即高盐、磷酸肌醇磷脂酶C（PI-PLC）和获能，共鉴定出N = 1,695种蛋白质（≥1个高质量肽谱匹配（PSM），<0.05，且错误发现率<0.01）。发现其中近一半的蛋白质（N = 873）参与了与雄性生育力相关的关键过程，例如精子发生、FRT中的精子成熟和保护以及配子相互作用或受精等。相对于生殖特异性细胞表面蛋白的鉴定深度而言，本研究中发现的广泛的精子表面蛋白质组库是无与伦比的，可为进一步研究水牛精子的功能方面提供潜在框架。
