Spermatogenesis articles from across Nature Portfolio

The activity of Drosophila male germline stem cells is tightly regulated by a cluster of somatic niche cells. Here they find that Dpp induces opposed cellular responses in stem cells versus in differentiating descendants, thereby ensuring spatial control of the niche with a single factor.

Gene expression dynamics are tightly regulated during spermatogenesis, with disruptions resulting in infertility. Here they identify a critical role for RNA PolII pausing in spermatogenesis and show that loss of the RNA PolII pausing factor NELF causes meiotic arrest.

Under high temperature in zebrafish, the temperature sensitive ion channel Trpv4 is upregulated in Leydig cells, inducing apoptosis. Leydig cell-specific apoptosis decreases steroid hormone synthesis, impairing the motility of sperm with compromised genome integrity.

Cells use diverse mechanisms to rid themselves of dysfunctional or excess mitochondria. A study now shows that C. elegans sperm use a previously undescribed mechanism to rapidly expel single healthy mitochondria in membrane-bound structures called mitophers.

Phosphorylation of the mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) maintenance factor TFAM during spermatogenesis prevents its import into mitochondria, resulting in elimination of paternal mtDNA and leading to maternal inheritance.

In many species, maternally deposited Piwi-interacting RNAs (piRNAs) deliver intergenerational epigenetic information to protect progeny from transposon expansion or invasion. However, Y-chromosome-encoded piRNAs cannot be passed from mothers to male offspring, yet mothers use autosomally encoded piRNAs to allow sons to utilize their Y chromosome to protect against ‘selfish’ elements.

Epigenetic inheritance is the transfer of non-DNA information across generations. A new study identifies sperm-specific PEI granules as essential for paternal epigenetic inheritance. PEI granule partitioning to sperm requires palmitoylation and myosin VI activity, suggesting lipidation-dependent granule transport on vesicles.