Tuesday, December 30, 2008

January 6 meeting

Paper to be discussed at the Jan. 6 meeting:
The fusing ability of sperm is bestowed by CD9-containing vesicles released from eggs in mice, Miyado et al., PNAS 105:12291-12926

[get paper here]

The egg membrane protein CD9 was identified as a critical player in mammalian gamete membrane fusion through mouse knockout studies (published in 2000 by three different groups [link to one of these papers]). However, few details of the actual function of CD9 in gamete fusion have been characterized. This paper suggests a novel and unexpected role of CD9, and we'll use this as a springboard to discuss a some other issues in the field of sperm-egg interaction (and highlighting a couple of findings from our lab).