Participation of epididymal CRISP1 in gamete interaction

JULIETA A. MALDERA

. Woods Hole, Estados Unidos

Simposio; XII Annual Frontiers in Reproduction Symposium; 2009

Mammalian fertilization is a complex multi-step process mediated by different molecules present on both gametes. Epididymal protein CRISP1, the first described member of the Cysteine RIch Secretory Protein (CRISP) family, was identified by our laboratory and postulated to participate in sperm-zona pellucida interaction and gamete fusion by binding to egg-complementary sites. The generation of CRISP1 knockout animals showed that, despite a normal animal fertility, CRISP1-deficient sperm present an impaired ability to fertilize both zona-intact and zona-free eggs confirming the proposed roles of the protein in gamete interaction. In addition, evidence indicated that human epididymal ARP/hCRISP1, as its rodent homologue, also participates in sperm-egg fusion and in the previous stage of sperm-zona pellucida binding. Together, these results support the involvement of CRISP1 in gamete interaction contributing to a better understanding of the molecular mechanisms underlying mammalian fertilization.