You may have heard myths that consuming certain foods can lower sperm count, but now researchers at the Medical Center have identified a gene that regulates processes involved in sperm production.
The researchers initially identified the gene in fruit flies and used it to find similar genes in mammalian systems. When the researchers removed the gene from mice, sperm generation ceased. Conversely, overexpression of the gene, called miwi in mice, produced testicular cancer.
"This gene acts like a master switch," said the study's senior author Dr. Haifan Lin, associate professor in the Department of Cell Biology. "There are many genes required for sperm production, but this gene is in charge of controlling all of their activities.... Clearly, this is an important gene that needs to be regulated to maintain proper sperm production."
When the researchers screened human patients with testicular cancer, they found elevated expression of the same gene, known as hiwi in humans, suggesting that this gene's function in mice would be comparable to its function in people.
"Because mouse genes are more than 90 percent identical to human genes, there's a very strong indication that miwi and hiwi have identical functions," Lin said. "These genes are present in fruit flies and other organisms, and they work in the same ways and yet, only have 35 percent homology [with mammals]. It's a safe bet they will have the same function as those in humans and mice."
Researchers believe these findings could be used as a diagnostic tool to identify patients at risk of becoming infertile or getting testicular cancer. In the long term, these results might help develop gene therapy that addresses these problems.
"I want to caution people that these findings are not going to revolutionize [treatment for infertility or testicular cancer] but these findings definitely put us in a better position. We can also use this gene to identify other genes that regulate this process. From that angle, this is an exponential finding," Lin said.
Using these results as the ground work, the researchers are now focused on learning more about the genetic program involved in regulating sperm production. Furthermore, this process is believed to be at the core of stem cell biology.
"This work... sheds new light on how germ cells develop in the embryo and how they develop during the fetal stages," said Dr. Peter Donovan, an associate professor at the Kimmel Cancer Center of Thomas Jefferson University. "We know very little about the regulation of sperm reproduction so these studies have been really fundamental in helping us understand this process."
The study was published earlier this month in the journal Oncogene. The study was co-authored by Wei Deng, a postdoctoral fellow in Lin's lab.
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