Low levels of PRSS37 protein in sperm are associated with many cases of unexplained male infertility

PRSS37, a putative trypsin-like serine protease, is highly conserved during mammalian evolution as revealed by multiple sequence alignment. Mice deficient for Prss37 gene exhibit male infertility, but their mating behavior, spermatogenesis, sperm morphology, and motility remain unaffected, similar t...

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Published in:Acta biochimica et biophysica Sinica 2016-11, Vol.48 (11), p.1058-1065
Main Authors: Liu, Jianbing, Shen, Chunling, Fan, Weimin, Chen, Yan, Zhang, Aijun, Feng, Yun, Li, Zheng, Kuang, Ying, Wang, Zhugang
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Acrosome - metabolism
Acrosome Reaction
Case-Control Studies
Fertilins - metabolism
Fertilization in Vitro
Gene Expression Profiling
Humans
Infertility, Male - metabolism
Male
Proteolysis
Serine Proteases - genetics
Serine Proteases - metabolism
Spermatozoa - metabolism
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Summary:PRSS37, a putative trypsin-like serine protease, is highly conserved during mammalian evolution as revealed by multiple sequence alignment. Mice deficient for Prss37 gene exhibit male infertility, but their mating behavior, spermatogenesis, sperm morphology, and motility remain unaffected, similar to a situation called unexplained male infertility （UMI） in men （human being）. Here, we demonstrated that PRSS37 is restrictively expressed in human testis, where it is mainly located in the elongating and elongated spermatids during spermiogenesis as shown by immunohistochem- ical analysis of normal human testicular sections. In mature sperm, PRSS37 appears in the acro- some region and diminishes during acrosome reaction. Further examination reveals that PRSS37 contents in sperm from patients with UMI are dramatically lower than those in sperm from men with proven fertility or from sperm donors. Sperm with low PRSS37 contents exhibit abnormal activation of the proacrosin/acrosin system and premature proteolysis of ADAM2, which may impair the functional competence of human sperm in vivo. However, the in vitro fertilization out- comes of sperm with low PRSS37 contents are not affected. Together, these data implicate an important role of PRSS37 for male fertility. PRSS37 can be used as a potential molecular bio- marker for evaluating sperm fertilization capability in vivo but not in vitro.
ISSN:1672-9145
1745-7270
DOI:10.1093/abbs/gmw096