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Scientists shed new light on male infertility
Scientists in Hong Kong and China have identified for the first time a protein in sperm from humans and from mice that could be responsible for many unexplained cases of male infertility.
- Reuters
- Published: 00:00 June 1, 2007
Scientists in Hong Kong and China have identified for the first time a protein in sperm from humans and from mice that could be responsible for many unexplained cases of male infertility.
Defective versions of the protein, called epithelial ion channel, have previously been reported to be responsible for female infertility. Writing in the latest issue of the Proceedings of National Academy of Sciences journal, the researchers said they detected the protein in sperm samples from mice and human subjects.
"[The protein] is involved in the transport of bicarbonate, which is required for sperm activation in order to fertilise the egg. If you have a defect in this [protein], then fertilisation capacity of the sperm will be impaired or reduced," Chan Hsiao Chang, physiology professor at the Chinese University in Hong Kong, said in a telephone interview yesterday.
Experiments showed that sperm taken from mutant mice with defective versions of the protein had far lower fertility than sperm taken from normal mice, the researchers said.
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