What is Known So Far About Bull Sperm Protamination: a Review

Overview

Journal Anim Reprod

Date 2022 Nov 16

PMID 36381269

Authors

Carlos Alonso Paco Nagaki

Thais Rose Dos Santos Hamilton

Mayra Elena Ortiz D Avila Assumpcao

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Sperm routinary fitness evaluation is not sufficient to predict bull reproductive capacity as they present differences in fertility up to 40%. Among the defects which compromise spermatozoa functionality, new approaches consider the study of sperm chromatin, which is the core structure containing paternal genetic information. Sperm chromatin needs to be compacted to maintain the integrity of DNA, which occurs by binding nucleoproteins with high affinity to DNA. In the last stages of sperm maturation, chromatin is hyper-compacted by basic proteins called protamines in a process named protamination. In this review, we summarized intrinsic and extrinsic factors that are suggested to influence protamination in bull spermatozoa, considering old and new evidence from human and murine spermatozoa. Also, the current approaches to evaluate bull protamination and its relationship with fertility were described. Nevertheless, the physiological mechanisms of protamination are still poorly understood.

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