The MpCAFA gene encodes a ciliary protein required for spermatozoid motility in the liverwort Marchantia polymorpha
This article has been Reviewed by the following groups
Discuss this preprint
Start a discussion What are Sciety discussions?Listed in
- Evaluated articles (Arcadia Science)
Abstract
Article activity feed
-
-
In this study, we identified MpCAFA, a protein that functions in spermatozoid motility. Our results
Very cool work on MpCAFA's role in liverwort spermatazoid motility! This is a really neat and mysterious protein. It will be very interesting to see if both CAPS and FAP115 domains are both essential in contributing the ciliary rigidity. Nice work!
-
While the swimmingdirection of most wild-type spermatozoids was predominantly straight, Mpcafage spermatozoids frequentlyexhibited circular trajectories or increased swing width (Fig. 7a). We examined two aspects of spermatozoidswimming behavior: swimming speed and linearity (see Materials and Methods).
Wow! The motility phenotype is very striking! It appears the WT and mutant spermatozoids have a similar number of cells in the field of view but the m-Citrine recovery strain has a lot more cells in the background. Were the sample densities normalized before imaging? You mentioned they perform chemotaxis so I'm curious if the recovery could be influenced by cell density. Regardless, it is a very clear and convincing recovery
-
Morphologicallynormal spermatozoids were released from all male Mpcafage plants upon the application of water to theirreceptacles (Fig. 6ab), and the cilia of spermatozoids from Mpcafage retained the typical 9+2 arrangement (Fig.6cd), indicating that MpCAFA is not essential for normal spermatozoid development.
I appreciate how you've shown that the mutant spermatozoids maintain normal morphology and axonemal structure despite their motility defects. I'm curious about the sample size that informed this conclusion - approximately how many spermatozoids did you analyze by phase-contrast microscopy, and how many axonemal cross-sections were examined by TEM? This information would help contextualize the robustness of the structural assessment, particularly since subtle ultrastructural differences might potentially contribute to the …
Morphologicallynormal spermatozoids were released from all male Mpcafage plants upon the application of water to theirreceptacles (Fig. 6ab), and the cilia of spermatozoids from Mpcafage retained the typical 9+2 arrangement (Fig.6cd), indicating that MpCAFA is not essential for normal spermatozoid development.
I appreciate how you've shown that the mutant spermatozoids maintain normal morphology and axonemal structure despite their motility defects. I'm curious about the sample size that informed this conclusion - approximately how many spermatozoids did you analyze by phase-contrast microscopy, and how many axonemal cross-sections were examined by TEM? This information would help contextualize the robustness of the structural assessment, particularly since subtle ultrastructural differences might potentially contribute to the observed swimming phenotype.
-
