Sperm chemotaxis is driven by the slope of the chemoattractant concentration field.
Authors
Velázquez Pérez, Martín
Wood, Christopher D
Darszon, Alberto
Publication Date
2020-03-09Journal Title
Elife
ISSN
2050-084X
Publisher
eLife Sciences Publications, Ltd
Volume
9
Language
en
Type
Article
This Version
VoR
Metadata
Show full item recordCitation
Ramírez-Gómez, H. V., Jimenez Sabinina, V., Velázquez Pérez, M., Beltran, C., Carneiro, J., Wood, C. D., Tuval, I., et al. (2020). Sperm chemotaxis is driven by the slope of the chemoattractant concentration field.. Elife, 9 https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.50532
Abstract
Spermatozoa of marine invertebrates are attracted to their conspecific female gamete by diffusive molecules, called chemoattractants, released from the egg investments in a process known as chemotaxis. The information from the egg chemoattractant concentration field is decoded into intracellular Ca2+ concentration ([Ca2+]i) changes that regulate the internal motors that shape the flagellum as it beats. By studying sea urchin species-specific differences in sperm chemoattractant-receptor characteristics we show that receptor density constrains the steepness of the chemoattractant concentration gradient detectable by spermatozoa. Through analyzing different chemoattractant gradient forms, we demonstrate for the first time that Strongylocentrotus purpuratus sperm are chemotactic and this response is consistent with frequency entrainment of two coupled physiological oscillators: i) the stimulus function and ii) the [Ca2+]i changes. We demonstrate that the slope of the chemoattractant gradients provides the coupling force between both oscillators, arising as a fundamental requirement for sperm chemotaxis.
Keywords
Research Article, Physics of Living Systems, sperm chemotaxis, cell motility, fertilization, Other
Sponsorship
Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnología (Fronteras 71)
Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnología (Ciencia basica 252213 y 255914)
Dirección General de Asuntos del Personal Académico, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (IA202417)
Dirección General de Asuntos del Personal Académico, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (IN205516)
Dirección General de Asuntos del Personal Académico, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (IN206016)
Dirección General de Asuntos del Personal Académico, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (IN215519)
Dirección General de Asuntos del Personal Académico, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (IN112514)
Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad (FIS2013-48444-C2-1-P)
Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad (FIS2016-77692-C2-1- P)
Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS/236, ID no. S16172)
Identifiers
50532
External DOI: https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.50532
This record's URL: https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/303763
Rights
Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
Licence URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
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