Instituto de Biología y Medicina Experimental, Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas (IBYME-CONICET), Buenos Aires, Argentina.
Departamento de Genética del Desarrollo y Fisiología Molecular, Instituto de Biotecnología, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Morelos, Mexico.
Elife. 2024 Nov 13;13:RP93792. doi: 10.7554/eLife.93792.
Mammalian sperm delve into the female reproductive tract to fertilize the female gamete. The available information about how sperm regulate their motility during the final journey to the fertilization site is extremely limited. In this work, we investigated the structural and functional changes in the sperm flagellum after acrosomal exocytosis (AE) and during the interaction with the eggs. The evidence demonstrates that the double helix actin network surrounding the mitochondrial sheath of the midpiece undergoes structural changes prior to the motility cessation. This structural modification is accompanied by a decrease in diameter of the midpiece and is driven by intracellular calcium changes that occur concomitant with a reorganization of the actin helicoidal cortex. Midpiece contraction occurs in a subset of cells that undergo AE, and live-cell imaging during in vitro fertilization showed that the midpiece contraction is required for motility cessation after fusion is initiated. These findings provide the first evidence of the F-actin network's role in regulating sperm motility, adapting its function to meet specific cellular requirements during fertilization, and highlighting the broader significance of understanding sperm motility.
哺乳动物精子深入女性生殖道以受精女性配子。关于精子在向受精部位的最后旅程中如何调节其运动的可用信息极其有限。在这项工作中,我们研究了顶体反应后和与卵子相互作用期间精子鞭毛的结构和功能变化。有证据表明,中段线粒体鞘周围的双螺旋肌动蛋白网络在运动停止前发生结构变化。这种结构修饰伴随着中段直径的减小,并由与肌动蛋白螺旋皮质重排同时发生的细胞内钙变化驱动。中段收缩发生在经历顶体反应的细胞亚群中,体外受精的活细胞成像显示,中段收缩是融合启动后运动停止所必需的。这些发现为 F-actin 网络在调节精子运动中的作用提供了第一个证据,使其适应受精过程中特定细胞的需求,突出了理解精子运动的更广泛意义。