Autocrine regulation of human sperm motility by tachykinins

Reproductive Biology and Endocrinology

Research

Nerea Subiran¹  Jon Irazusta¹  Manuel Fernández-Sánchez²  Cristina G Ravina²  Nicolas Garrido³  Antonio Cejudo-Román⁴  Francisco M Pinto⁴  Luz Candenas⁴ 

[1] Department of Physiology, Faculty of Medicine and Dentistry, University of the Basque Country, 48940, Leioa, Bizkaia, Spain;Instituto Valenciano de Infertilidad de Sevilla, Avenida Republica Argentina 58, 41011, Sevilla, Spain;Instituto Valenciano de Infertilidad de Valencia, Plaza de la Policía Local 3, 46015, Valencia, Spain;Instituto de Investigaciones Químicas, CSIC, Avda., Americo Vespucio 49, 41092, Sevilla, Spain;

关键词: Sperm Cell;    Sperm Motility;    Seminal Plasma;    Human Sperm;    Acrosin;   

DOI  :  10.1186/1477-7827-8-104

 received in 2010-05-14, accepted in 2010-08-26,  发布年份 2010

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

BackgroundWe examined the presence and function of tachykinins and the tachykinin-degrading enzymes neprilysin (NEP) and neprilysin-2 (NEP2) in human spermatozoa.MethodsFreshly ejaculated semen was collected from forty-eight normozoospermic human donors. We analyzed the expression of substance P, neurokinin A, neurokinin B, hemokinin-1, NEP and NEP2 in sperm cells by reverse-transcriptase polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR), western blot and immunocytochemistry assays and evaluated the effects of the neprilysin and neprilysin-2 inhibitor phosphoramidon on sperm motility in the absence and presence of tachykinin receptor-selective antagonists. Sperm motility was measured using WHO procedures or computer-assisted sperm analysis (CASA).ResultsThe mRNAs of the genes that encode substance P/neurokinin A (TAC1), neurokinin B (TAC3), hemokinin-1 (TAC4), neprilysin (MME) and neprilysin-2 (MMEL1) were expressed in human sperm. Immunocytochemistry studies revealed that tachykinin and neprilysin proteins were present in spermatozoa and show specific and differential distributions. Phosphoramidon increased sperm progressive motility and its effects were reduced in the presence of the tachykinin receptor antagonists SR140333 (NK1 receptor-selective) and SR48968 (NK2 receptor-selective) but unmodified in the presence of SR142801 (NK3 receptor-selective).ConclusionThese data show that tachykinins are present in human spermatozoa and participate in the regulation of sperm motility. Tachykinin activity is regulated, at least in part, by neprilysins.

【 授权许可】

Unknown   
© Pinto et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. 2010. This article is published under license to BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.