A paternal protein facilitates sperm RNA delivery to regulate zygotic development

Sperm contributes essential paternal factors,including the paternal genome,centrosome,and oocyte-activation signals,to sexual reproduction.However,it remains unresolved how sperm contributes its RNA molecules to regulate early embryonic development.Here,we show that the Caenorhabditis elegans paternal protein SPE-11 assembles into granules during meiotic divisions of spermatogenesis and later matures into a perinuclear structure where sperm RNAs localize.We reconstitute an SPE-11 liquid-phase scaffold in vitro and find that SPE-11 condensates incorporate the nematode RNA,which,in turn,promotes SPE-11 phase separation.Loss of SPE-11 does not affect sperm motility or fertilization but causes pleiotropic development defects in early embryos,and spe-11 mutant males reduce m RNA levels of genes crucial for an oocyte-to-embryo transition or embryonic development.These results reveal that SPE-11 undergoes phase separation and associates with sperm RNAs that are delivered to oocytes during fertilization,providing insights into how a paternal protein regulates early embryonic development.