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Epididymal maturation – a crucial step in the post-testicular sperm development
Postlerová, Pavla ; Pohlová, Alžběta ; Zigo, Michal ; Jonáková, Věra
Mammalian spermatozoa after their development in testis undergo the post-testicular maturation in epididymis where acquire their fertilization ability and competence of movement. The epididymis is tissue with very active fluid-absorbing and fluid-secreting activity. Epididymal fluid contains ions and small molecules, proteins, glycoproteins and enzymes. The surface of spermatozoa is exposed directly to the epididymal fluid, and the sperm plasma membrane is significantly changed. Some testicular proteins are altered, masked, or replaced by new proteins/glycoproteins of epididymal origin. Several proteins produced by epididymis have been described in various mammalian species and shown to be associated with spermatozoa suggesting a role in the sperm maturation and/or sperm-egg binding and fusion. We isolated proteins from fluid, tissue and sperm of boar epididymis, and separated them by chromatographic and electrophoretic methods. We searched for known proteins using panel of antibodies and tested proteins of epididymal fluid for binding abilities. In the epididymis, we found proteins described as proteins of seminal plasma and associated with the sperm surface, such as spermadhesins, beta-microseminoprotein and acrosin inhibitor. These proteins were detected in epididymal sperm, fluid and tissue. We showed that some epididymal proteins may bind the spermatozoa and change the binding sites on the sperm surface. We determined and identified some proteins from boar epididymal fluid with affinity to heparin, hyaluronan and zona pellucida glycoproteins. These phenomena indicate that epididymal fluid proteins bind to the sperm surface during epididymal maturation and might subsequently play role in the sperm capacitation or sperm-zona pellucida binding.
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Single cell expression analysis of genes with potential mrna gradient in mouse oocytes
Dorosh, Andriy ; Margaryan, Hasmik ; Vodička, Martin ; Ergang, Peter ; Šídová, Monika ; Dvořáková-Hortová, Kateřina
In frogs, there are clearly visible differently pigmented animal and vegetal poles of the egg determined before fertilization and leading to asymmetrical divisions. Mammalian egg does not show any comparable differentiation and it has been generally accepted that even the individual blastomeres in 2-cell and 4-cell embryos are homogenous. However, recent findings suggest that those blastomeres display different gene expression patterns and might already possess some inclinations to specific cell lineages. We therefore raised a question, whether there could be any mRNA or protein gradients in pre-fertilization oocytes similar to a previously described amphibian egg one. In mammalian eggs, there is a membrane region that is poor in microvilli, cortical granules are absent beneath plasma membrane and sperm cells generally do not bind to this location. This microvilli free region also covers the egg nucleus, and cytoskeleton localization differs markedly to the rest of the cortical space, forming actin –myosin II cortical cap/ring and is considered as animal pole. The purpose of this study was to determine gene products that can be detected at single cell level using qPCR and display gradient like distribution in mature oocytes. We checked expression of 12 selected genes in a pool of 10 oocytes and single mature oocytes. Then, we analysed gene expression in fixed intact oocytes and those undergoing laser capture microdissection procedure (LCMD). Eventually, we have determined six candidate genes for the study of intracellular spatial gene expression in mature mammalian oocytes by subcellular qPCR and in situ hybridization.
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Estrogen receptor beta (ERβ) in testicular cells and sperm
Dostálová, Pavla ; Žatecká, Eva ; Děd, Lukáš ; Dorosh, Andriy ; Postlerová, Pavla ; Jonáková, Věra ; Dvořáková-Hortová, Kateřina ; Pěknicová, Jana
Estrogen is a steroid hormone that plays an important role during sperm development in the male and female reproductive tract. Estrogen signalling is a complex process that depends on cell milieu and presence of receptors. Thanks to the steroid nature of estrogens, they can pass through the plasmatic membrane and bind to the intracellular estrogen receptors (ERs). Within the cell, there are several pools of ERs. One of them is localized to the cell nucleus and their activation leads to direct or indirect binding to DNA and ultimately to alternation in gene expression (genomic pathway). Other pools of ERs are associated with plasma membrane or are located in cytosol. Activation of membrane associated ERs leads to rapid non-genomic responses. Nowadays, two classical estrogen receptors are known – ERα and ERβ. Since ERβ is a predominant variant in testes, we focused our study on expression of ERβ variants in murine testes and sperm. We detected two variants of ERβ at mRNA level in both, testes and sperm. These variants differ in 54 nucleotids within the ligand binding domain and this variability results in different affinity to estrogen. We analyzed individual testicular cell types (spermatogonia, spermatocytes, spermatids, Sertoli cells) by RT-qPCR. Our results suggest that both ERβ variants are coexpressed in the same cell type and may therefore interact together. This may have consequences in mediating of estrogen signalling. Moreover, ERβ is expressed more in the later stages of spermatogenesis suggesting the role of ERβ in these stages or alternatively in spermatozoa alone. At the protein level, we detected ERβ in nuclear, membrane and cytosolic fraction prepared from testicular tissue suggesting the involvement of both, genomic and non-genomic, pathways of estrogen signaling in testes. In sperm, anti-ERβ antibodies localized ERβ in acrosome region and tail which is in accordance with the known role of estrogen on capacitation, acrosome reaction and motility.
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