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HEREDITAS(Beijing) ›› 2014, Vol. 36 ›› Issue (8): 747-755.doi: 10.3724/SP.J.1005.2014.0747

• Reviews • Previous Articles     Next Articles

The progress of sperm functional proteins regulating the process of fertilization

Zhilin Chen1, Meiying Feng1, Yuming Chen1, Hengxi Wei1, Li Li1, Tongshan Wu2, Shouquan Zhang1   

  1. 1. National Engineering Research Center For Breeding Swine Industry, College of Animal Science, South China Agricultural University, Guangzhou 510642, China;
    2. Dongguan Institute of Animal Science, Dongguan 523086, China
  • Received:2014-03-22 Online:2014-08-20 Published:2013-07-19

Abstract: The process of mammalian fertilization involves a series of sperm functional activities, including the sperm transportation, hyperactivation and capacitation, acrosome reaction and sperm-egg fusion, etc. The semen proteins play indispensable roles in these processes, and they are closely associated with the fecundity of males. So these proteins can be biomarkers to evaluate the fertilization capacity of mammalian semen. In this review, we mainly introduce some semen proteins relevant to spermatozoa functions and illustrate their important regulatory roles on the fertilization processes, involving spermatozoa motility, capacitation, acrosome reaction, penetrating the zona pellucida and sperm-egg fusion, etc. Moreover, their potential applications in the evaluation of heredity in livestock are also summarized.

Key words: fertilization, spermatozoa, protein, biomarkers, fecundity