Comparative proteomic analysis of high‐ and low‐fertile buffalo bull spermatozoa for identification of fertility‐associated proteins

Abstract

Contents The present study identified few potential proteins in the spermatozoa of buffalo bulls that can be used as an aid in fertility determination through comparative proteomics. The sperm proteome of high‐fertile buffalo bulls was compared with that of low‐fertile buffalo bulls using two‐dimensional difference gel electrophoresis (2D‐DIGE), and the differentially expressed proteins were identified through mass spectrometric method. The protein interaction network and the functional bioinformatics analysis of differentially expressed proteins were also carried out. In the spermatozoa of high‐fertile bulls, 10 proteins were found overexpressed and 15 proteins were underexpressed at the level of twofold or more (p ≤ 0.05). The proteins overexpressed in high‐fertile spermatozoa were PDZD8, GTF2F2, ZNF397, KIZ, LOH12CR1, ACRBP, PRSS37, CYP11B2, F13A1 and SPO11, whereas those overexpressed in low‐fertile spermatozoa were MT1A, ATP5F1, CS, TCRB, PRODH2, HARS, IDH3A, SRPK3, Uncharacterized protein C9orf9 homolog isoform X4, TUBB2B, GPR4, PMP2, CTSL1, TPPP2 and EGFL6. The differential expression ranged from 2.0‐ to 6.1‐fold between the two groups, where CYP11B2 was high abundant in high‐fertile spermatozoa and MT1A was highly abundant in low‐fertile spermatozoa. Most of the proteins overexpressed in low‐fertile spermatozoa were related to energy metabolism and capacitation factors, pointing out the possible role of pre‐mature capacitation and cryo‐damages in reducing the fertility of cryopreserved buffalo spermatozoa.

Circular RNA Expression and Regulation Profiling in Testicular Tissues of Immature and Mature Wandong Cattle (Bos taurus)

“…We found different candidate genes by analyzing these GO terms, and some of these genes, such as ATM serine/threonine kinase ( ATM ), glycogen synthase kinase 3 beta ( GSK3B ), and cyclin A1 ( CCNA1 ), were found to be significantly enriched in the cell cycle pathway and associated with spermatozoa differentiation. The ATM protein is associated with low-fertile buffalo bull spermatozoa ( M. K et al, 2019 ); in mouse spermatocytes, the meiotic recombination is initiated by SPO11-induced double-strand breaks (DSBs) , and ATM controls this process ( Huang et al, 2019 ; Paiano et al, 2020 ). GSK3B showed significant expression changes across these pubertal stages in the hypothalamus of piglets and is also involved in crucial biological processes that regulate economically relevant traits associated with beef cattle fertility ( Fonseca et al, 2018 ).…”

Domestic animal proteomics in the 21st century: A global retrospective and viewpoint analysis

“…Domestic animal proteomics has also been applied to animal production systems related to different aspects of lactation. These included the study of lactating mammary epithelial cells in cattle and water buffalo [57,58], bovine milk proteome characterization and differentiation between breeds [59,60] or the establishment of protein biomarkers for early pregnancy diagnosis [61] estrus detection [62], male fertility [63,64].…”

Spermatozoa produced during winter are superior in terms of phenotypic characteristics and oviduct explants binding ability in the water buffalo (Bubalus bubalis)

“…Earlier studies indicated that several molecules including Adenylate kinase 1 (Kasimanickam et al, 2012), ATP5D (Aslam et al, 2018), CatSper (Qi et al, 2007;Singh & Rajender, 2015), Cytochrome P450 aromatase (Aslam et al, 2014), MDH2 (Aslam et al, 2018) and Phosphatidylethanolamine-binding protein (Arangasamy et al, 2011; Somashekar et al, 2017) have been shown to be associated with sperm fertility. Very recently, it was reported that molecules related to energy metabolism and capacitation were altered in low-fertile buffalo spermatozoa (Aslam et al, 2019).…”