#sperm tail

[currentsinbiology]

Better get a good look before they’re all gone...

Sperm Cell Tails Have Helix Structures, Could Help With Infertility

But this knowledge gap could shrink, with a new imaging technique called cryogenic electron tomography. Also known as cryo-ET, this innovative technology can zoom in on cells to capture them in 3-D. As first author on a paper employing this technique, Zabeo and his colleagues were able to study human sperm.

Their study, published in Scientific Reports, reveals a microscopic, left-handed helix structure at the tip of the sperm tail that has never been seen before. This finding could provide insights into why some seminal swimmers are more successful than others, and help to develop new drugs for infertility problems and contraception.

The tails of human sperm cells have left-handed helix shapes, scientists have found. PHOTOGRAPH BY DEAGOSTINI, GETTY

[currentsinbiology]

Fast, efficient sperm tails inspire nanobiotechnology

Just like workers in a factory, enzymes can create a final product more efficiently if they are stuck together in one place and pass the raw material from enzyme to enzyme, assembly line-style. That's according to scientists at Cornell's Baker Institute for Animal Health, the first team to recreate a 10-step biological pathway with all the enzymes tethered to nanoparticles.

They were inspired to study how nanoparticles could gain biological functions through the enzymes that drive sperm tails, which turn sugar into lactate and energy so quickly that sperm can speed along at five body lengths per second.

"Sperm have a highly efficient energy-producing system," said the study's lead author, Chinatsu Mukai, a postdoctoral research associate. In the Baker Institute laboratory of Alex Travis, associate professor of reproductive biology, Mukai and others had been studying metabolism and sperm function. Travis had the idea to mimic the way sperm tail enzymes are attached to a solid support in an attempt to achieve the same sort of efficiency on small human-made devices

Chinatsu Mukai, Lizeng Gao, Jacquelyn L. Nelson, James P. Lata, Roy Cohen, Lauren Wu, Meleana M. Hinchman, Magnus Bergkvist, Robert W. Sherwood, Sheng Zhang, Alexander J. Travis. Biomimicry Promotes the Efficiency of a 10-Step Sequential Enzymatic Reaction on Nanoparticles, Converting Glucose to Lactate. Angewandte Chemie International Edition, 2016; DOI: 10.1002/anie.201609495

Graphic depicts the tethered enzymes and free-floating enzymes.Credit: Cornell University