The sea urchin has long been used as an invertebrate model organism in developmental biology, membrane transport and sperm oocyte interactions, and for the assessment of marine pollution. This review explores the effects of cryopreservation and biobanking in the biology and development of sea urchins, all the way from germaplasm through to juveniles. This review will provide an integral view of...

BACKGROUND Sperm cryopreservation has become an indispensable tool in biology. Initially, studies were aimed towards the development of efficient freezing protocols in different species that would allow for an efficient storage of semen samples for long periods of time, ensuring its viability. Nowadays, it is widely known that an important individual component exists in the cryoresistance of se...

Organisms that reproduce by sperm-dependent parthenogenesis are asexual clones that require sperm of a sexual host to initiate egg production, without the genome of the sperm contributing genetic information to the zygote. Although sperm-dependent parthenogenesis has some of the disadvantages of sex (requiring a mate) without the counterbalancing advantages (mixing of parental genotypes), it ap...

Background Leukocytes linked directly and indirectly to reactive oxygen species (ROS) formation. Although leukocytospermia is defined as the presence of ≥1×106 white blood cells/mL (WBC/mL) in a semen sample, the presence of less than 1×106 WBC/mL (low-level leukocytospermia) still can produce a detectable amount of ROS, impairing sperm function and lowering the chances of pregnancy. Low concen...

OBJECTIVE To evaluate the ultramorphologic sperm features of idiopathic infertile men after acupuncture therapy. DESIGN Prospective controlled study. SETTING Christian-Lauritzen-Institut, Ulm, IVF center Munich, Germany, and Department of General Biology, University of Siena, Siena, Italy. PATIENT(S) Forty men with idiopathic oligospermia, asthenospermia, or teratozoospermia. INTERVENTI...

During mammalian spermatogenesis, the diploid spermatogonia mature into haploid spermatozoa through a highly controlled process of mitosis, meiosis and post-meiotic morphological remodeling (spermiogenesis). Despite important progress made in this area, the molecular mechanisms underpinning this transformation are poorly understood. Our analysis of the expression and function of the putative se...

T. Schedl (ed.), Germ Cell Development in C. elegans, Advances in Experimental Medicine and Biology 757, DOI 10.1007/978-1-4614-4015-4_7, © Springer Science+Business Media New York 2013 Abstract During spermatogenesis, pluripotent germ cells differentiate to become ef fi cient delivery vehicles to the oocyte of paternal DNA. Though male and female germ cells both undergo meiosis to produce hapl...

Animal germ cells differentiate as sperm or eggs, depending on their sex. Somatic signals tell germ cells whether they reside in a male or female body, but how do germ cells interpret those external cues to acquire their own sexual identity? A critical aspect of a germ cell's sexual puzzle is that the sperm/egg decision is closely linked to the cell-cycle decision between mitosis and meiosis. M...

Activation of the egg by the sperm is the first, vital stage of embryogenesis. The sperm protein PLCζ has been proposed as the physiological agent that triggers the Ca2+ oscillations that normally initiate embryogenesis. Consistent with this, recombinant PLCζ induces Ca2+ oscillations in eggs and debilitating mutations in the PLCZ1 gene are associated with infertility in men. However, there has...

Peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor gamma (PPARγ) is a nuclear hormone receptor expressed predominantly in adipose tissue, also implicated in energy homeostasis. In this study, we used western blotting and immunofluorescence techniques to demonstrate for the first time that pig spermatozoa express PPARγ. To investigate the functional role of PPARγ in pig sperm, we evaluated its action on...