Abstract
The sperm acrosome is essential for sperm-egg fusion and is often defective in men with nonobstructive infertility. Here we report that male mice with a null mutation in Hrb are infertile and display round-headed spermatozoa that lack an acrosome. In wild-type spermatids, Hrb, is associated with the cytosolic surface of proacrosomic transport vesicles that fuse to create a single large acrosomic vesicle at step 3 of spermiogenesis. Although proacrosomic vesicles form in spermatids that lack Hrb, the vesicles are unable to fuse, blocking acrosome development at step 2. We conclude that Hrb is required for docking and/or fusion of proacrosomic vesicles during acrosome biogenesis.
Original language | English (US) |
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Pages (from-to) | 1531-1533 |
Number of pages | 3 |
Journal | Science |
Volume | 294 |
Issue number | 5546 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Nov 16 2001 |
Externally published | Yes |