Medicine and Health Sciences Commons^™

Structural Specializations Of The Sperm Tail, Miguel Ricardo Leung, Jianwei Zeng, Xiangli Wang, Marc C Roelofs, Wei Huang, Riccardo Zenezini Chiozzi, Johannes F Hevler, Albert J R Heck, Susan K Dutcher, Alan Brown, Rui Zhang, Tzviya Zeev-Ben-Mordehai

2020-Current year OA Pubs

Sperm motility is crucial to reproductive success in sexually reproducing organisms. Impaired sperm movement causes male infertility, which is increasing globally. Sperm are powered by a microtubule-based molecular machine-the axoneme-but it is unclear how axonemal microtubules are ornamented to support motility in diverse fertilization environments. Here, we present high-resolution structures of native axonemal doublet microtubules (DMTs) from sea urchin and bovine sperm, representing external and internal fertilizers. We identify >60 proteins decorating sperm DMTs; at least 15 are sperm associated and 16 are linked to infertility. By comparing DMTs across species and cell types, we define core microtubule inner proteins …