Sperm-associated antigen 6 explained

Sperm-associated antigen 6 is a protein that in humans is encoded by the SPAG6 gene.^{[1] [2]}

Function

The correlation of anti-sperm antibodies with cases of unexplained infertility implicates a role for these antibodies in blocking fertilization. Improved diagnosis and treatment of immunologic infertility, as well as identification of proteins for targeted contraception, are dependent on the identification and characterization of relevant sperm antigens. The protein expressed by this gene is recognized by anti-sperm antibodies from an infertile man. This protein localizes to the tail of permeabilized human sperm and contains eight contiguous armadillo repeats, a motif known to mediate protein-protein interactions. Studies in mice suggest that this protein is involved in sperm flagellar motility and maintenance of the structural integrity of mature sperm. Alternatively spliced variants that encode different protein isoforms have been described but the full-length sequences of only two have been determined.

Further reading

• Diekman AB, Herr JC . Sperm antigens and their use in the development of an immunocontraceptive . American Journal of Reproductive Immunology . 37 . 1 . 111–7 . January 1997 . 9138444 . 10.1111/j.1600-0897.1997.tb00199.x . 39710127 .
• Smith EF, Lefebvre PA . The role of central apparatus components in flagellar motility and microtubule assembly . Cell Motility and the Cytoskeleton . 38 . 1 . 1–8 . 1997 . 9295136 . 10.1002/(SICI)1097-0169(1997)38:1<1::AID-CM1>3.0.CO;2-C .
• Sapiro R, Tarantino LM, Velazquez F, Kiriakidou M, Hecht NB, Bucan M, Strauss JF . Sperm antigen 6 is the murine homologue of the Chlamydomonas reinhardtii central apparatus protein encoded by the PF16 locus . Biology of Reproduction . 62 . 3 . 511–8 . March 2000 . 10684790 . 10.1095/biolreprod62.3.511 . free .
• Hartley JL, Temple GF, Brasch MA . DNA cloning using in vitro site-specific recombination . Genome Research . 10 . 11 . 1788–95 . November 2000 . 11076863 . 310948 . 10.1101/gr.143000 .
• Wiemann S, Weil B, Wellenreuther R, Gassenhuber J, Glassl S, Ansorge W, Böcher M, Blöcker H, Bauersachs S, Blum H, Lauber J, Düsterhöft A, Beyer A, Köhrer K, Strack N, Mewes HW, Ottenwälder B, Obermaier B, Tampe J, Heubner D, Wambutt R, Korn B, Klein M, Poustka A . Toward a catalog of human genes and proteins: sequencing and analysis of 500 novel complete protein coding human cDNAs . Genome Research . 11 . 3 . 422–35 . March 2001 . 11230166 . 311072 . 10.1101/gr.GR1547R .
• Sapiro R, Kostetskii I, Olds-Clarke P, Gerton GL, Radice GL, Strauss III JF . Male infertility, impaired sperm motility, and hydrocephalus in mice deficient in sperm-associated antigen 6 . Molecular and Cellular Biology . 22 . 17 . 6298–305 . September 2002 . 12167721 . 134010 . 10.1128/MCB.22.17.6298-6305.2002 .
• Zhang Z, Sapiro R, Kapfhamer D, Bucan M, Bray J, Chennathukuzhi V, McNamara P, Curtis A, Zhang M, Blanchette-Mackie EJ, Strauss JF . A sperm-associated WD repeat protein orthologous to Chlamydomonas PF20 associates with Spag6, the mammalian orthologue of Chlamydomonas PF16 . Molecular and Cellular Biology . 22 . 22 . 7993–8004 . November 2002 . 12391165 . 134734 . 10.1128/MCB.22.22.7993-8004.2002 .
• Ficarro S, Chertihin O, Westbrook VA, White F, Jayes F, Kalab P, Marto JA, Shabanowitz J, Herr JC, Hunt DF, Visconti PE . Phosphoproteome analysis of capacitated human sperm. Evidence of tyrosine phosphorylation of a kinase-anchoring protein 3 and valosin-containing protein/p97 during capacitation . The Journal of Biological Chemistry . 278 . 13 . 11579–89 . March 2003 . 12509440 . 10.1074/jbc.M202325200 . free .
• Wiemann S, Arlt D, Huber W, Wellenreuther R, Schleeger S, Mehrle A, Bechtel S, Sauermann M, Korf U, Pepperkok R, Sültmann H, Poustka A . From ORFeome to biology: a functional genomics pipeline . Genome Research . 14 . 10B . 2136–44 . October 2004 . 15489336 . 528930 . 10.1101/gr.2576704 .
• Mehrle A, Rosenfelder H, Schupp I, del Val C, Arlt D, Hahne F, Bechtel S, Simpson J, Hofmann O, Hide W, Glatting KH, Huber W, Pepperkok R, Poustka A, Wiemann S . The LIFEdb database in 2006 . Nucleic Acids Research . 34 . Database issue . D415–8 . January 2006 . 16381901 . 1347501 . 10.1093/nar/gkj139 .

Notes and References

1. Neilson LI, Schneider PA, Van Deerlin PG, Kiriakidou M, Driscoll DA, Pellegrini MC, Millinder S, Yamamoto KK, French CK, Strauss JF . cDNA cloning and characterization of a human sperm antigen (SPAG6) with homology to the product of the Chlamydomonas PF16 locus . Genomics . 60 . 3 . 272–80 . September 1999 . 10493827 . 10.1006/geno.1999.5914 . free .
2. Web site: Entrez Gene: SPAG6 sperm associated antigen 6.