Despite the father transmitting half the heritable information to the embryo the focus on preconception health has largely been on the mother. New studies highlight the role of the father in disease transmission via non-genetic inheritance, through epigenetic mechanisms. Epigenetic mechanisms include, DNA methylation, post-translational modifications of histones and noncoding RNAs. Paternal eff...

Human papillomaviruses (HPVs) are agents of the most common sexually transmitted diseases in females and males. Precise data about the presence, mechanism of infection and clinical significance of HPV in the male reproductive tract and especially in sperm are not available. Here we show that HPV can infect human sperm, it localizes at the equatorial region of sperm head through interaction betw...

DNA compaction with protamines in sperm is essential for successful fertilization. However, a portion of sperm chromatin remains less tightly packed with histones, which genomic location and function remain unclear. We extracted and sequenced histone-associated DNA from sperm of nine ejaculates from three bulls. We found that the fraction of retained histones varied between samples, but the var...

Spermiogenesis is a series of poorly understood morphological, physiological and biochemical processes that occur during the transition of immotile spermatids into motile, fertilization-competent spermatozoa. Here, we identified a Serpin (serine protease inhibitor) family protein (As_SRP-1) that is secreted from spermatids during nematode Ascaris suum spermiogenesis (also called sperm activatio...

TFIID is a general transcription factor required for transcription of most protein-coding genes by RNA polymerase II. TAF7L is an X-linked germ cell-specific paralogue of TAF7, which is a generally expressed component of TFIID. Here, we report the generation of Taf7l mutant mice by homologous recombination in embryonic stem cells by using the Cre-loxP strategy. While spermatogenesis was complet...

BACKGROUND Sperm DNA is protected against fragmentation by a high degree of chromatin packaging. It has been demonstrated that proper chromatin packaging is important for boar fertility outcome. However, little is known about the molecular mechanisms underlying differences in sperm DNA fragmentation. Knowledge of sequence variation influencing this sperm parameter could be beneficial in selecti...

Background Although spermatozoa delivers its RNA to oocytes at fertilization, its biological role is not well characterized. Our purpose was to identify the genes differentially and exclusively expressed in sperm samples both before and after the swim-up process in control donors and infertile males with the purpose to identify their functional significance in male fertility. MaterialsAndMethod...

In mammals, Sirt1, a member of the sirtuin family of proteins, functions as a nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide-dependent protein deactylase, and has important physiological roles, including the regulation of glucose metabolism, cell survival, and mitochondrial respiration. The initial investigations of Sirt1 deficient mice have revealed a phenotype that includes a reduced lifespan, small size,...

Sperm competition is an important fitness component in many animal groups. Drosophila melanogaster males exhibit substantial genetic variation for sperm competitive ability and females show considerable genetic variation for first versus second male sperm use. Currently, the forces responsible for maintaining genetic variation in sperm competition related phenotypes are receiving much attention...

CatSper channel has been considered the principal sperm Ca2+ channel responsible for the cytosolic Ca2+ elevation required for various sperm functions necessary for fertilization [1-4]. However, the mechanism underlying the activation of CatSper channel by various physiological ligands remain incompletely understood. We have recently demonstrated the expression of C-C chemokine receptor 6 (CCR6...