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Thermotaxis of mammalian sperm cells: A potential navigation mechanism in the female genital tract

Nature Medicine volume 9, pages 149–150 (2003)Cite this article

To the editor

One of the puzzles in mammalian fertilization is how sperm cells navigate within the female genital tract towards the egg. Sperm chemotaxis, demonstrated in vitro in humans and other mammals, is a navigation mechanism that, due to gradient-disturbing peristaltic movements of the oviduct, probably functions in vivo only over a short distance from the egg1. Another potential cue for sperm guidance is the ovulation-dependent temperature difference within the female genital tract2,3,4. In the rabbit, this difference amounts to approximately 2 °C between the sperm reservoir's site (the isthmus5) and the warmer fertilization site (the isthmic-ampullary junction) at ovulation2. Here we examined whether rabbit spermatozoa can sense this temperature difference and respond to it by thermotaxis.

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Figure 1: Thermotactic responses of rabbit spermatozoa.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Biological Chemistry, The Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel

    Anat Bahat, Anna Gakamsky & Michael Eisenbach

  2. Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, In-vitro Fertilization Unit, Barzilai Medical Center, Ben-Gurion University, Ashkelon, Israel

    Ilan Tur-Kaspa

  3. Laboratory of Cell Biology, Faculty of Science, National University of Córdoba, Córdoba, and Council of Scientific and Technological Research (CONICET), Argentina

    Laura C. Giojalas

  4. Faculty of Life Sciences, Bar-Ilan University, Ramat-Gan, Israel

    Haim Breitbart

Authors
  1. Anat Bahat
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  2. Ilan Tur-Kaspa
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  3. Anna Gakamsky
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  4. Laura C. Giojalas
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  5. Haim Breitbart
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  6. Michael Eisenbach
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Correspondence to Michael Eisenbach.

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Bahat, A., Tur-Kaspa, I., Gakamsky, A. et al. Thermotaxis of mammalian sperm cells: A potential navigation mechanism in the female genital tract. Nat Med 9, 149–150 (2003). https://doi.org/10.1038/nm0203-149

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