ABSTRACT
TDRP (Testis Development-Related Protein), a nuclear factor, might play an important role in spermatogenesis. However, the molecular mechanisms of TDRP underlying these fundamental processes remain elusive. In this study, a Tdrp-deficient mouse model was generated. Fertility tests and semen analysis were performed. Tdrp-deficient mice were not significantly different from wild-type littermates in development of testes, genitourinary tract, or sperm count. Morphologically, spermatozoa of the Tdrp-deficient mice was not significantly different from the wild type. Several sperm motility indexes, i.e. the average path velocity (VAP), the straight line velocity (VSL) and the curvilinear velocity (VCL) were significantly decreased in Tdrp-deficient mice (p<0.05). The proportion of slow velocity sperm also increased significantly in the mutant mice (p<0.05). However, fertility tests showed that no significant difference inaverage offspring amount (AOA), frequency of copulatory plug (FCP), and frequency of conception (FC). Furthermore, TDRP1 could interact with PRM2, which might be the molecular mechanism of its nuclear function in spermatozoa. In conclusion, these data collectively demonstrated that Tdrp deficiency impaired the sperm motility, but Tdrp deficiency alone was not sufficient to cause male infertility in mice. Additionally, TDRP1 might participate in spermatogenes is through interaction with PRM2.
ABSTRACT
Objective To get TDRP1 gene of sterile and fertile boar of the Banna minipig inbred line (BMI), predict its function by bioinformatics analysis, and detect its expression patterns in the fertile boar.Methods Based on the NM_001198925 sequence, we designed specific primers and amplified BMI TDRP1 using RT-PCR method for sequen-cing and bioinformatics analysis.Meanwhile, the expression of TDRP1 in 17 organ tissues ( heart, liver, spleen, lung, kidney, thymus, lymph nodes, skin, duodenum, stomach, cerebrum, cerebellum, testis, epididymis, seminal vesicle, prostate, and bulbourethral gland) of fertile BMI boar and in the testis of sterile and fertile BMI boars was analyzed by semi-quantitative RT-PCR.Results The experiment obtained 680 bp cDNA sequence ( GenBank accession number:KJ186786) of BMI TDRP1, which encodes a protein of 186 amino acids with a predicted molecular weight (Mw) of 20.49 kDa and isoelectric point (pI) 5.86, and no signal peptide.It was a nuclear protein with a probability of 94.1%and had a leucine-rich nuclear export signals.Homology analysis of protein sequences revealed that BMI TDRP1 showed high identi-ty with that of humans, macaca mulatta, mouse and rat.The RT-PCR analysis showed that TDRP1 had a similar expression in the testes of sterile and fertile BMI boars.It was highly abundant in the seminal vesicle and prostate, moderately ex-pressed in cerebellum and testis and weakly expressed in cerebrum and kidney, while undetected in other 11 organ tissues. Conclusions We have cloned TDRP1 complete coding sequence, and found 2 SNPs,showing no difference in sequences and the testis mRNA expression levels between the fertile and sterile BMI boars.The multi-tissue transcription profile shows different expression levels in different organ tissues, being high in the seminal vesicle and prostate.The results of this study provide a foundation for further insight into the role of this gene in spermatogenesis.
