The latest findings reveal the important functions and mechanisms of autophagy in the process of sperm deformation

On August 23, 2021, the international academic journal Developmental Cell published an online paper by the Sichuan University team on the important functions of autophagy in the male reproductive system
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Studies have found that the autophagy initiation mediator Vac8/ARMC3 enhances the autophagy activity to degrade the sperm cell ribosome, thereby providing energy for the movement of mature sperm

Researcher Lu Kefeng from the State Key Laboratory of Biotherapy of West China Hospital of Sichuan University, Professor Xu Wenming and associate researcher Li Huihui of West China Second Hospital of Sichuan University are the co-corresponding authors of the paper.
Doctoral student Lei Yuqing and master student Zhang Xueguang are the co-first authors of the paper
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Autophagy is a highly conserved, lipid vesicle-mediated autophagosome dynamic process in eukaryotes that transports intracellular substances to vacuoles or lysosomes for degradation
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Autophagy is closely related to a variety of physiological and pathological processes

This paper starts from the autophagy gene Vac8 and studies the mechanism of Vac8 involved in autophagy
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It is found that Vac8 is located at the initiation site of vacuolar membrane autophagy through the N-terminal palmitoylation modification, and there are 12 repeated ARM domains in the middle to recruit the catalytic kinase complex PIK3C3-C1 of the autophagosomal lipid PtdIns3P

Furthermore, the researchers analyzed the mouse homologous molecule ARMC3 of Vac8 and found that its knockout resulted in a specific male sterility phenotype in mice
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In-depth studies have found that ARMC3 is highly expressed as the spermatogenesis process begins, and the mediated autophagy activity can promote the autophagic degradation of cytoplasmic ribosomes during sperm deformation (round spermatozoa develop into elongated sperm), and thus become elongated sperm.

This research not only provides information for answering the question of autophagy initiation, but also enriches people's understanding of the physiological functions of autophagy in multicellular organisms, and provides clues and treatment guidance for the analysis of unexplained male sterility

Related paper information: https://doi.