Unlocking sperm chromatin at fertilization requires a dedicated egg thioredoxin in Drosophila

Samantha Tirmarche, Shuhei Kimura, Raphaëlle Dubruille, Béatrice Horard and Benjamin Loppin ()
Additional contact information
Samantha Tirmarche: Laboratoire de Biométrie et Biologie Évolutive, Université de Lyon
Shuhei Kimura: Laboratoire de Biométrie et Biologie Évolutive, Université de Lyon
Raphaëlle Dubruille: Laboratoire de Biométrie et Biologie Évolutive, Université de Lyon
Béatrice Horard: Laboratoire de Biométrie et Biologie Évolutive, Université de Lyon
Benjamin Loppin: Laboratoire de Biométrie et Biologie Évolutive, Université de Lyon

Nature Communications, 2016, vol. 7, issue 1, 1-11

Abstract: Abstract In most animals, the extreme compaction of sperm DNA is achieved after the massive replacement of histones with sperm nuclear basic proteins (SNBPs), such as protamines. In some species, the ultracompact sperm chromatin is stabilized by a network of disulfide bonds connecting cysteine residues present in SNBPs. Studies in mammals have established that the reduction of these disulfide crosslinks at fertilization is required for sperm nuclear decondensation and the formation of the male pronucleus. Here, we show that the Drosophila maternal thioredoxin Deadhead (DHD) is specifically required to unlock sperm chromatin at fertilization. In dhd mutant eggs, the sperm nucleus fails to decondense and the replacement of SNBPs with maternally-provided histones is severely delayed, thus preventing the participation of paternal chromosomes in embryo development. We demonstrate that DHD localizes to the sperm nucleus to reduce its disulfide targets and is then rapidly degraded after fertilization.

Date: 2016
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms13539 Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcom:v:7:y:2016:i:1:d:10.1038_ncomms13539

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/ncomms/

DOI: 10.1038/ncomms13539

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Communications is currently edited by Nathalie Le Bot, Enda Bergin and Fiona Gillespie

More articles in Nature Communications from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().