German researchers have identified a protein, loss of which resulted in male infertility among mice.

Mature spermatozoa are characterised by a head, midpiece and a long tail for locomotion.

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Male sperm cells are constantly produced in large quantities in the testicles during so-called spermatogenesis.

In this process, the typical elongated sperm cells are formed from round germ cells. This enormous change in shape requires the fine tuned reorganisation of specialised structural proteins.

The team from the University Hospital Bonn (UKB) in Germany found that loss of the structural protein ACTL7B blocks the process of spermatogenesis in male mice.

The cells can no longer develop their characteristic shape and remain in a rather round form. The animals are infertile. The results are published in the journal Development.

“Since it is exclusively made in humans and mice during the maturation of male sperm, it has been postulated that the protein is important for this phase of development,” said Prof. Hubert Schorle from the Institute of Pathology at UKB.

To investigate the role of the structural protein in spermiogenesis, Prof. Schorle’s team generated a mouse model with a mutation in the Actl7b gene using gene-editing technology. This results in a complete loss of function of ACTL7B.

“Without ACTL7B, development is blocked, the cells often remain in a roundish shape, usually do not form the elongated, typical sperm shape and die to a large extent,” said first author Gina Esther Merges, a doctoral student in Professor Schorle’s laboratory.

In this context, the Bonn researchers found that ACTL7B is required for the reorganisation of the cytoskeleton of spermatids. Using mass spectrometric analyses, they identified two interaction partners of ACTL7B, DYNLL1 and DYNLL2.

“We were able to show that without the structural protein, DYNLL1 and 2 are not correctly localised in the round spermatids. Since it is probably a larger protein complex with further interaction partners, we attribute the above described effect to a loss of temporally and spatially precisely regulated and targeted redistribution of these proteins,” Schorle noted.

This explains why the sperm of male mice with a mutated Actl7b gene is not able to develop the characteristic shape.

Due to this, the animals are infertile. In addition, according to other research, there is evidence that levels of the protein ACTL7B are reduced in some fertility patients.

“Our study shows that mutations in the Actl7b gene could be the cause of male infertility,” Schorle said.