Research report 2009 - Max Planck Institute for Neurobiology of Behavior - caesar

Lonely hearts ad of a sperm cell: Extremely sensible character seeks for an egg to fuse

Authors
Timo Strünker, U. Benjamin Kaupp
Departments
caesar (center of advances european studies and research)
Summary
Eggs attract sperm by the release of chemical factors (chemoattractants). Sperm navigate in the chemoattractant gradient surrounding the egg, a process called chemotaxis. Sperm of the sea urchin Arbacia punctulata display an extreme sensitivity for their chemoattractant. The sperm can respond to stimulation by a single attractant molecule. An atypical cyclic nucleotide-gated ion channel (CNGK) in the sperm flagellum is key for the single-molecule sensitivity. The chemoattractant triggers the synthesis of the intracellular messenger cGMP. The structurally unique CNGK-channel is activated by small changes in intracellular cGMP concentration and initiates the chemotactic signaling cascade.

For the full text, see the German version.

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