Selecting the Best Sperm and Its Implications in Clinical Practice

2013 
The main function of the spermatozoon is to introduce an intact normal DNA into the oocyte; once accomplished, the highly packed sperm chromatin must be decondensed and the protamines substituted by histones. This requires the reduction by GSH of the disulfide bonds that crosslink the sperm nuclear protamines. Thereafter, pronuclear formation will proceed. To that end, the sperm must release its proximal centriole into the oocyte in order for pronuclear alignment and mitotic spindle formation to take place after fertilization. It is necessary that the oocyte-activating factor that the fertilizing spermatozoon carries in its nuclear membrane and that has been characterized as a phospholipase Czeta, induce calcium release from intracellular stores leading to the activation of inositol phosphate- and diacyl glycerol (DAG)-mediated signal transduction mechanisms, protein phosphorylation, the expression of specific gene expression factors, and the activation of the so-called master genes in the embryo’s genome that will set in motion the development of an embryo.
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