A study on organelle morphogenesis during sperm differentiation driven by microtubule based cytoskeleton.

2014 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 24570225
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Section: 一般
• Research Field: Cell biology
• Research Institution: National Defense Medical College
• Principal Investigator: NOGUCHI Tatsuhiko 防衛医科大学校(医学教育部医学科進学課程及び専門課程、動物実験施設、共同利用研究, 医学教育部医学科進学課程, 助教 (30443005)
• Project Period (FY): 2012-04-01 – 2015-03-31
• Keywords: 精子 / ショウジョウバエ / オルガネラ / 微小管

Outline of Final Research Achievements

Sperm has an elegant functional design to perform a crucial role in reproduction, swimming towards target egg as a single cell, and carrying out cell-fusion to fertilize the egg. However, molecular mechanism to develop such intracellular architecture is remained uncovered. I took an approach to use Drosophila spermatogenesis as a model system to uncover general mechanism of sperm morphogenesis, taking advantage of Drosophila molecular genetics and primary culture system for differentiating sperm cell for live imaging. During late spermatogenesis after meiosis, sperm nucleus elongates and then undergoes extreme chromosome condensation, making it a needle shape. By examining a few fly mutants which lack microtubule based structures around the sperm nuclei, I found that 2 distinct microtubule populations are responsible for nuclear elongation and chromosome condensation.

Free Research Field

細胞生物学