RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 Sperm chemotaxis is driven by the slope of the chemoattractant concentration field
JF bioRxiv
FD Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
SP 148650
DO 10.1101/148650
A1 H.V. Ramírez-Gómez
A1 V. Jiménez-Sabinina
A1 I. Tuval
A1 M. Velázquez-Pérez
A1 C. Beltrán
A1 J. Carneiro
A1 C.D. Wood
A1 A. Darszon
A1 A. Guerrero
YR 2017
UL http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2017/06/10/148650.abstract
AB Spermatozoa are attracted to their conspecific female gamete by diffusive molecules released from the egg investments, a process called chemotaxis. The decapeptide speract induces metabolic and permeability changes in Strongylocentrotus purpuratus sea urchin sperm. In spite of decades since speract purification from S. purpuratus egg investments, sperm chemotaxis has not been demonstrated in this species. By studying how the stimulus function, which spermatozoa experience during the accumulation of bound chemoattractants throughout their trajectory, influences both their motility response and their internal Ca2+ oscillations, we were able to show, for the first time, that S. purpuratus spermatozoa exhibit chemotaxis under sufficiently steep speract concentration gradients. We demonstrate that this process arises through frequency entrainment of the coupled metabolic oscillators.