CatSperζ regulates the structural continuity of sperm Ca2+ signaling domains and is required for normal fertility
- Yale School of Medicine, United States
- Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Boston Children's Hospital, United States
- Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Harvard University, United States
- Ichan School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, United States
Abstract
We report that the Gm7068 (CatSperε) and Tex40 (CatSperζ) genes encode novel subunits of a 9-subunit CatSper ion channel complex. Targeted disruption of CatSperζ reduces CatSper current and sperm rheotactic efficiency in mice, resulting in severe male subfertility. Normally distributed in linear quadrilateral nanodomains along the flagellum, the complex lacking CatSperζ is disrupted at ~0.8 μm intervals along the flagellum. This disruption renders the proximal flagellum inflexible and alters the 3D flagellar envelope, thus preventing sperm from reorienting against fluid flow in vitro and efficiently migrating in vivo. Ejaculated CatSperζ-null sperm cells retrieved from the mated female uterus partially rescue in vitro fertilization (IVF) that failed with epididymal spermatozoa alone. Human CatSperε is quadrilaterally arranged along the flagella, similar to the CatSper complex in mouse sperm. We speculate that the newly identified CatSperζ subunit is a late evolutionary adaptation to maximize fertilization inside the mammalian female reproductive tract.
Article and author information
Author details
Funding
Howard Hughes Medical Institute
- Xiaowei Zhuang
- David E Clapham
Yale School of Medicine (Goodman-Gilman Yale Scholar Award 2015-08)
- Jean-Ju Chung
The funders had no role in study design, data collection and interpretation, or the decision to submit the work for publication.
Reviewing Editor
- Kenton J Swartz, National Institutes of Health, United States
Ethics
Animal experimentation: This study was performed in strict accordance with the recommendations in the Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals of the National Institutes of Health. All the mice were treated in accordance with guidelines approved by the Boston Children's Hospital (13-01-2341R) and Yale (2015-20079) Animal Care and Use Committees (IACUC).
Version history
- Received: November 8, 2016
- Accepted: February 20, 2017
- Accepted Manuscript published: February 22, 2017 (version 1)
- Accepted Manuscript updated: February 23, 2017 (version 2)
- Version of Record published: March 22, 2017 (version 3)
Copyright
© 2017, Chung et al.
This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License permitting unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the original author and source are credited.
Metrics
-
- 4,781
- views
-
- 966
- downloads
-
- 118
- citations
Views, downloads and citations are aggregated across all versions of this paper published by eLife.
Download links
A two-part list of links to download the article, or parts of the article, in various formats.
Downloads (link to download the article as PDF)
Open citations (links to open the citations from this article in various online reference manager services)
Cite this article (links to download the citations from this article in formats compatible with various reference manager tools)
CatSperζ regulates the structural continuity of sperm Ca2+ signaling domains and is required for normal fertility
eLife 6:e23082.
https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.23082
Further reading
-
- Developmental Biology
- Structural Biology and Molecular Biophysics
A crucial event in sexual reproduction is when haploid sperm and egg fuse to form a new diploid organism at fertilization. In mammals, direct interaction between egg JUNO and sperm IZUMO1 mediates gamete membrane adhesion, yet their role in fusion remains enigmatic. We used AlphaFold to predict the structure of other extracellular proteins essential for fertilization to determine if they could form a complex that may mediate fusion. We first identified TMEM81, whose gene is expressed by mouse and human spermatids, as a protein having structural homologies with both IZUMO1 and another sperm molecule essential for gamete fusion, SPACA6. Using a set of proteins known to be important for fertilization and TMEM81, we then systematically searched for predicted binary interactions using an unguided approach and identified a pentameric complex involving sperm IZUMO1, SPACA6, TMEM81 and egg JUNO, CD9. This complex is structurally consistent with both the expected topology on opposing gamete membranes and the location of predicted N-glycans not modeled by AlphaFold-Multimer, suggesting that its components could organize into a synapse-like assembly at the point of fusion. Finally, the structural modeling approach described here could be more generally useful to gain insights into transient protein complexes difficult to detect experimentally.
-
- Structural Biology and Molecular Biophysics
The organization of nucleosomes into chromatin and their accessibility are shaped by local DNA mechanics. Conversely, nucleosome positions shape genetic variations, which may originate from mismatches during replication and chemical modification of DNA. To investigate how DNA mismatches affect the mechanical stability and the exposure of nucleosomal DNA, we used an optical trap combined with single-molecule FRET and a single-molecule FRET cyclization assay. We found that a single base-pair C-C mismatch enhances DNA bendability and nucleosome mechanical stability for the 601-nucleosome positioning sequence. An increase in force required for DNA unwrapping from the histone core is observed for single base-pair C-C mismatches placed at three tested positions: at the inner turn, at the outer turn, or at the junction of the inner and outer turn of the nucleosome. The results support a model where nucleosomal DNA accessibility is reduced by mismatches, potentially explaining the preferred accumulation of single-nucleotide substitutions in the nucleosome core and serving as the source of genetic variation during evolution and cancer progression. Mechanical stability of an intact nucleosome, that is mismatch-free, is also dependent on the species as we find that yeast nucleosomes are mechanically less stable and more symmetrical in the outer turn unwrapping compared to Xenopus nucleosomes.
