The Winning Tail

Millions embark on an epic journey, but only one makes it to the end. The race between countless sperm to fertilise an egg and kick-start the creation of a new life is a process of elimination, ensuring only one racer reaches the finish line. Lots of what we know about this competition comes from laboratory experiments, but real-world conditions are hard to replicate. A new study has visualised in 3D the reproductive tracts of female mice to provide a front row view. It revealed that a molecular channel in the tail of sperm, called CatSper1 (red), remains intact in sperm that make it to passages close to the egg (left and centre), but is degraded in those that fall early on (right). The status of this propelling structure could be a factor in selecting the finest sperm, which might point towards new targets for contraception or fertility treatments.

Written by Anthony Lewis

Anthony Lewis

Writer

Ant was the web editor in the early days of BPoD, and has since worked with the UK’s top science organisations as a writer and multimedia producer. He now splits his time between freelance work and managing multimedia at The Lancet.

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• Video from work by Lukas Ded and colleagues
• Department of Cellular & Molecular Physiology, Yale School of Medicine, New Haven, CT, USA
• Video originally published with a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
• Published in eLife, October 2020