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No Heads
10 June 2018

No Heads

There’s not much to sperm cells. They consist of a head, which contains the genetic payload, and a tail, which accelerates the cell toward the awaiting egg. Nevertheless, they can, for a number of reasons, go wrong. The fruit fly sperms pictured on the left, for example, have a tendency to lose their heads (orange). They lack a protein called centrobin that's well known for organising cellular scaffolding during cell division, but that has more recently been found to organise protein assembly in sperm too. The mutant protein disrupts proper tail formation and weakens the head-to-tail link such that it is easily broken. Importantly, centrobin is highly conserved across the animal kingdom, including humans. And, delicate sperm prone to decapitation is a known cause of sterility in men. Continuing such research in flies, then, may one day lead to treatments that can tackle male infertility head-on.

Written by Ruth Williams

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BPoD stands for Biomedical Picture of the Day. Managed by the MRC Laboratory of Medical Sciences until Jul 2023, it is now run independently by a dedicated team of scientists and writers. The website aims to engage everyone, young and old, in the wonders of biology, and its influence on medicine. The ever-growing archive of more than 4000 research images documents over a decade of progress. Explore the collection and see what you discover. Images are kindly provided for inclusion on this website through the generosity of scientists across the globe.

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