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 regul...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.展开更多
基金the Ministry of Science and Technology of China(2019YFA0508401)the National Natural Science Foundation of China(31871394,82121004,32100538)+3 种基金Shanghai Municipal Science and Technology Major Project(2018SHZDZX01)the China Postdoctoral Science Foundation(2022M711844)the Young Elite Scientists Sponsorship Program by CAST(YESS20220102)ZJ Lab and Shanghai Center for Brain Science and Brain-Inspired Technology。
文摘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.
