Genes that influence mating and/or fertilization success may be targets for strong natural selection. If females remate frequently relative to the duration of sperm storage and rate of sperm use, sperm displacement may be an important component of male reproductive success. Although it has long been known that mutant laboratory stocks of Drosophila differ in sperm displacement, the magnitude of...

Channel activities, particularly those of calcium channels, have vital roles in the process of sperm maturation, motility and sperm-egg interaction. A group of the recently discovered ion channels associated with these processes is four novel channel-like proteins known as CatSper (cation channel sperm) gene family. CatSper1 and CatSper2 show sperm specific expression patterns. However, neither...

BACKGROUND As one of the chlorinated antifertility compounds, alpha-chlorohydrin (ACH) can inhibit glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase (G3PDH) activity in epididymal sperm and affect sperm energy metabolism, maturation and fertilization, eventually leading to male infertility. Further studies demonstrated that the inhibitory effect of ACH on G3PDH is not only confined to epididymal sperm b...

The male reproductive tracts in different species are characterized by similar patterns of male-dependent overexpression of carboxylesterases. This phenomenon indicates male sex-associated functions of these enzymes for spermatogenesis, sperm maturation, and sperm use. Recently, a novel epididymis-specific gene named Ces7 was cloned and characterized, which belongs to the carboxylesterase famil...

To understand the contradiction between megabase-sized lampbrush loops and putative protein encoding genes both associated with the loci of Y chromosomal fertility genes of Drosophila on the molecular level, we used PCR-mediated cloning to identify and isolate the cDNA sequence of the Y chromosomal Drosophila hydei gene DhDhc7(Y). Alignment of the sequences of the putative protein DhDhc7(Y) and...

A growing number of genes involved in sex and reproduction have been demonstrated to be rapidly evolving. Here, we show that genes expressed solely in spermatozoa represent a highly diverged subset among mouse and human tissue-specific orthologs. The average rate of nonsynonymous substitutions per site (K(a)) is significantly higher in sperm proteins (mean K(a) = 0.18; N = 35) than in proteins ...

The mammalian Y chromosome is essential for spermatogenesis, which is characterized by sperm cell differentiation and chromatin condensation for acquisition of correct shape of the sperm. Deletions of the male-specific region of the mouse Y chromosome long arm (MSYq), harboring multiple copies of a few genes, lead to sperm head defects and impaired fertility. Using chromatin immunoprecipitation...

Germ cell-specific genes such as Ddx4, Dnd1, and Dazl play critical roles in the proliferation and survival of germ cells. However, the methylation state of the promoter in mature germ cells is still unknown. Here, we investigated the methylation levels of these genes and the pluripotency marker gene Nanog in chicken sperm as compared with the Alb gene in the liver. CpG islands and/or promoter ...

BACKGROUND Reproductive isolation is a defining characteristic of populations that represent unique biological species, yet we know very little about the gene expression basis for reproductive isolation. The advent of powerful molecular biology tools provides the ability to identify genes involved in reproductive isolation and focuses attention on the molecular mechanisms that separate biologic...