The amount of food and when it is available affect both the timing of reproduction and the number of gametes produced by purple sea urchins, Strongylocentrotus purpuratus. To investigate this further, the effects of food availability on feeding rates, gonad growth, and gamete development were examined in S. purpuratus collected from the Point Loma kelp forest near San Diego, California, USA (32...

Since α6β1 integrin has been shown to function as a sperm adhesion receptor in the mouse, we investigated the potential role of β1 integrin in the gamete fusion process in humans. The expression of β1 integrin was morphologically analysed by indirect immunofluorescence and confocal microscopy. A homogeneous and intense staining was detected at the plasma membrane, and in some subcortical vesicl...

In the vast majority of sexual life cycles, fusion between single-celled gametes is directly followed by nuclear fusion, leading to a diploid zygote and a lifelong commitment between two haploid genomes. Mushroom-forming basidiomycetes differ in two key respects. First, the multicellular haploid mating partners are fertilized in their entirety, each cell being a gamete that simultaneously can b...

The molecular mechanisms of the defining event in fertilization, gamete fusion, remain poorly understood. The FUS1 gene in the unicellular, biflagellated green alga Chlamydomonas is one of the few sex-specific eukaryotic genes shown by genetic analysis to be essential for gamete fusion during fertilization. In Chlamydomonas, adhesion and fusion of the plasma membranes of activated mt+ and mt- g...

Mating pheromone-induced alteration of the cell surface proteins of haploid cells, presumed to play crucial roles in the specific cell-cell interactions during sexual conjugation of Tremella mesenterica , was investigated. Exposed surface proteins were revealed by lactoperoxidase-catalyzed iodination in combination with polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis and autoradiography. From comparison of ...

INTRODUCTION In their article, ‘Gamete donor anonymity and limits on numbers of offspring: the views of three stakeholders’, Margaret K. Nelson, Rosanna Hertz and Wendy Kramer draw on survey data from gamete donors, parents who used gametes to conceive, and donor-conceived offspring in order to understand the position that various stakeholders are likely to hold regarding the regulation of two ...

Is there a common mechanism of eukaryotic sex? Two recent reports highlight an ancient and widely distributed protein that is key to gamete fusion and is a potential target for malaria vaccines.

Various techniques constitute assisted reproduction, one of which is gamete intra-fallopian transfer (GIFT). The first example of GIFT involved primates during the 1970s, however, the technology was unsuccessful until 1984 when an effective GIFT method was invented by Ricardo Asch [4] at the University of Texas Health Sciences Center [5] and the procedure resulted in the first human pregnancy [...