ABSTRACT
BACKGROUND: Chemokine (C-C motif) receptor 6 (CCR6) is present in sperm and plays a significant role in sperm motility and chemotaxis acting in the reproductive tracts. However, the expression and functional significance of CCR6 in testis are still poorly understood, especially in the process of spermatogenesis. METHODS AND RESULTS: CCR6 was expressed in spermatogenic cell lines and its expression was shown in an age-dependent upregulation manner from puberty to adulthood in mouse testis. Immunostaining results confirmed the localization of CCR 6 in testis. Further chemotaxis assays demonstrated that spermatogenic cells GC-1 and -2 exhibited a directional movement toward CCR6-specific ligand such as CCL20 or Sertoli cells in vitro. CONCLUSIONS: The present findings indicate that CCR6 is involved in the chemotaxis of spermatogenic cells in vitro and promotes chemotaxis under non-inflammatory conditions during normal spermatogenesis.
Subject(s)
Humans , Animals , Male , Mice , Rabbits , Spermatogenesis/physiology , Chemotaxis/physiology , Cryptorchidism/metabolism , Chemokine CCL20/metabolism , Receptors, CCR6/metabolism , Sertoli Cells , Sperm Motility/physiology , Testis/physiology , Immunohistochemistry , Blotting, Western , Fluorescent Antibody Technique , Mice, Inbred C57BLABSTRACT
In order to identify novel genes involved in spermatogenesis, testis cDNA samples from Balb/C mice of different postnatal days were hybridized with the whole mouse genome Affymetrix chip to screen the testis-specific genes. The characteristics of the selected genes were analyzed by RT-PCR as well as other bioinformatic tools. A novel differentially expressed testis-specific gene (GenBank Acces-sion No: NM_029042) in the developmental stages of testes was identified, and named TSCPA. Cellular mapping prediction of TSCPA indicated that its protein was probably expressed in nuclei, and one puta-tive domain (aa 332-377) was anchoring domain of cAMP-dependent type Ⅱ PK. The result of subcel-lular localization of GFP-TSCPA fusion protein in Cos-7 cells showed that TSCPA protein was ex-pressed in nuclei. RT-PCR analysis revealed that TSCPA was expressed specifically in mouse and hu-man testis. TSCPA gene was expressed weakly in 21-day-old mouse testis and the expression was in-creased gradually from 38th day to 6th month of mouse testes. No expression of hTSCPA was found in cryptorchidism and Sertoli-cell-only syndrome patients. It was concluded that the expression profile of TSCPA in human and mice indicated that TSCPA might play an important role in spermatogenesis.