News27.10.2014Publication of the paper "Genomic and proteomic dissection and characterisation of the human sperm chromatin" |
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Doctor Josep Maria Estanyol, responsible of the Proteomics Technology of the CCiTUB, has participated together with other experts in the paper "Genomic and proteomic dissection and characterisation of the human sperm chromatin", published on September 5th in the journal Molecular Human Reproduction.
The abstract of the paper is the following: "The mammalian spermatozoon has a unique chromatin structure where the majority of DNA is packaged by protamines, while a small fraction (∼8%) remains associated with nucleosomes. However, the chromatin affinity and repertoire of the additional proteins constituting the different sperm chromatin fractions have not yet been explored. To address this we have carried out a genomic and proteomic characterisation of human sperm samples subjected to chromatin fractionation using either 0.65 M NaCl extraction followed by EcoRI/BamHI DNA restriction enzyme digestion, or microccoccal nuclease digestion. DNA fractions corresponding to the nucleosome-packaged DNA were sequenced, confirming an appropriate dissection of the sperm chromatin. In addition we detected and sequenced a subnucleosomal particle. Although both fractions were highly enriched at gene promoters, some sequences were found to be exclusively associated with one of those. The results of the proteomic analyses demonstrate that there are two distinct sets of sperm proteins which differ in chromatin affinity. Histone variants, transcription factors, chromatin-associated and modifying proteins involved in regulatory roles were identified as weakly attached to the sperm DNA, whereas proteins with structural roles were identified in the condensed fraction. Many factors, such as the histone lysine demethylase PHF8 identified for the first time in the human sperm cell in this study, were identified exclusively in soluble fraction. Our results provide additional support to the possibility that all of these factors may constitute additional layers of sperm epigenetic information or have structural or regulatory roles transmitted by the sperm cell to the oocyte at fertilisation." You can read the complete paper in the next link. | |