Abstract
BackgroundDuring maturation, spermatozoa acquire motility and fertilizing capacity as they transit through the epididymis. In recent years, two-dimensional gel electrophoresis has been employed in proteomics studies conducted in rat, boar and human. However, there has not been a complete information regarding the proteins associated with sperm maturation in the epididymis. In this study, we employed iTRAQ proteomics to investigate proteins associated with sperm maturation between yak and cattleyak epididymis.ResultsAfter a successful sampling and protein extraction, the iTRAQ coupled with LC-MS/MS mass spectrometry and bioinformatics analysis were performed. We identified 288 differentially abundant proteins (DAPs) between yak and cattleyak epididymis; 151 were up-regulated while 137 were down-regulated in cattleyak relative to yak. Gene Ontology analysis identified that down-regulated DAPs in cattleyak were mostly enriched in the acetylation of protein component, along with negative and positive regulatory activities. iTRAQ proteomics data showed that the top up-regulated DAPs were mainly enriched in cell communication, cell adhesion, cytoskeleton organization, stress response, post-translational modifications and metabolic functions while the down-regulated DAPs were predominantly associated with sperm maturation, long-term sperm storage, sperm forward motility, sperm-oocyte fusion and regulatory functions.ConclusionThese results provide insight into the molecular mechanisms underlying male cattleyak sterility.
Highlights
During maturation, spermatozoa acquire motility and fertilizing capacity as they transit through the epididymis
We identified proteins associated with sperm maturation between yak and cattleyak epididymis employing iTRAQ proteomics
We identified a total of 4596 proteins between yak and cattleyak epididymis
Summary
Spermatozoa acquire motility and fertilizing capacity as they transit through the epididymis. There has not been a complete information regarding the proteins associated with sperm maturation in the epididymis. We employed iTRAQ proteomics to investigate proteins associated with sperm maturation between yak and cattleyak epididymis. The male cattleyak is sterile and this may be associated with spermatogenic arrest [2, 3] and/or some other factors such as genes or proteins expression dynamics along the epididymis. Not too many proteomics studies have been conducted to investigate male cattleyak sterility [4, 5]. Most of the previous studies focused on testis and could not completely elucidate the exact cause of infertility in male cattleyak. No study has explored epididymis using iTRAQ proteomics as a means of identifying the sterility mechanism in male cattleyaks.
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