Green fluorescently tagged sperm, released from epididymis (left), red-tagged sperm after incubation (middle), or mixed (right) binding to the zona pellucida of a mouse oocyte in vitroSCIENCE TRANSLATIONAL MEDICINE, M.A. AVELLA ET AL.The device: Researchers have created peptide-coated agarose beads that bind mouse sperm in vitro and in vivo, as well as human sperm in vitro, according to a study published today (April 27) in Science Translational Medicine. When transplanted into the mouse uterus, the sperm-binding peptide–coated beads prevented fertilization for more than two months, after which the female animal was again fertile.
In vitro, human sperm that reversibly bound to similar peptide–coated beads resembled the male gametes normally selected to have the greatest capacity to bind and fertilize human oocytes.
“You can have anything go wrong in this whole process, but they got it to work and that is surprising and very impressive,” said Deijan Ren, a professor of biology at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia who was not involved in the work.
Mammalian oocytes and preimplantation embryos are coated with a multi-glycoprotein membrane called the zona pellucida. Researchers at the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK) and their colleagues coated inert beads with either mouse or human peptides of one of these glycoproteins, called ZP2, which is required for prefertilization sperm-oocyte ...
