Acta Veterinaria et Zootechnica Sinica ›› 2022, Vol. 53 ›› Issue (7): 2194-2201.doi: 10.11843/j.issn.0366-6964.2022.07.016

• ANIMAL BIOTECHNOLOGY AND REPRODUCTION • Previous Articles     Next Articles

Study on Nuclear-plasma Transporter KPNA4 of Sheep Sperm Cell

YAN Shuo, ZHAO Shanshan, ZHU Zhendong, PAN Qingjie*, DONG Huansheng*   

  1. College of Animal Science and Technology, Qingdao Agricultural University, Qingdao 266109, China
  • Received:2022-01-04 Online:2022-07-23 Published:2022-07-23

Abstract: The study aimed to analyze the protein expression of sperm in epididymis at 3 different regions (caput, corpus and cauda) and obtain differentially expressed proteins using proteomics in sheep. The functional enrichment analysis on the data was performed to explore proteins regulating spermatogenesis and maturation. In this study, 3 healthy male Hu sheep around 12 months of age were selected as experimental animals, the epididymis were isolated and sperms were collected by regions. There were 3 groups of samples (caput group, corpus group and cauda group), 3 biological replicates in each group, totaling 9 samples of sheep sperm. Based on TMT-calibrated quantitative protein technology and R software, GO and KEGG enrichment analysis were performed on differentially expressed proteins, and the reliability of the results was verified by Western blot, immunofluorescence and flow cytometry. A total of 616 differential proteins were identified from 22 841 unique peptides. Among them, cauda vs. caput group had 309 differentially expressed proteins(up:213, down:96), cauda vs corpus group had 167 differentially expressed proteins(up:107, down:60), corpus vs caput group had 140 differentially expressed proteins(up:88, down:52). According to the fold change and protein function, the key protein KPNA4, which may be related to sperm maturation and nuclear material transport, was screened out. This study reveals the characteristics and differences of sperm from different regions of the sheep epididymis. These data provide a rich resources for studying the reproductive mechanism and sperm maturation in male sheep.

Key words: sheep, proteomics, sperm maturation

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