Fertile Findings

Like impossibly numerous coloured handkerchiefs rammed inside a clown’s pocket, a densely-packed network of tubules fill the testes. Here millions of sperm are produced every hour, but any knot in the system can cause infertility. Mutations in the genes NM2A or NM2B cause infertility in mice, and in humans are linked to conditions from deafness to glomerulosclerosis. Investigating the mechanisms of disruption could have far-reaching implications. A study has shown that mice with one of these mutations had smaller testes and defects in their Sertoli cells – key players in sperm production, pictured in the tubules. Further experiments found that the microtubule cytoskeleton – the internal scaffold marked in green and red – was disorganised, and that both NM2A and NM2B must be silenced to affect fertility. Given the wide ranging impacts of these mutations in humans, findings like this could potentially breed improved treatments for more than fertility alone.

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.

Website

• Image from work by Derek C.Sung and colleagues
• Laboratory of Molecular Cardiology, Cell and Developmental Biology Center, Bethesda, MD, USA
• Image copyright Elsevier 2021. Reproduced with permission.
• Published in Developmental Biology, February 2021