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mammalian fertilization and kinetics of sperm internalization
Benjamin Ravaux, Nabil Garroum, Eric Perez, Hervé Willaime, Christine Gourier
To cite this version:
Benjamin Ravaux, Nabil Garroum, Eric Perez, Hervé Willaime, Christine Gourier. A specific flagellum
beating mode for inducing fusion in mammalian fertilization and kinetics of sperm internalization. Sci-
entific Reports, Nature Publishing Group, 2016, 6 (1), pp.31886. �10.1038/srep31886�. �hal-01357925�
www.nature.com/scientificreports
A specific flagellum beating mode for inducing fusion in mammalian fertilization and kinetics of sperm internalization
Benjamin Ravaux
1, Nabil Garroum
1, Eric Perez
1, Hervé Willaime
2& Christine Gourier
1The salient phases of fertilization are gamete adhesion, membrane fusion, and internalization of the spermatozoon into the oocyte but the precise timeline and the molecular, membrane and cell mechanisms underlying these highly dynamical events are far from being established. The high motility of the spermatozoa and the unpredictable location of sperm/egg fusion dramatically hinder the use of real time imaging optical techniques that should directly provide the dynamics of cell events. Using an approach based on microfluidics technology, the sperm/egg interaction zone was imaged with the best front view, and the timeline of the fertilization events was established with an unparalleled temporal accuracy from the onset of gamete contact to full sperm DNA decondensation. It reveals that a key element of the adhesion phase to initiate fusion is the oscillatory motion of the sperm head on the oocyte plasma membrane generated by a specific flagellum-beating mode. It also shows that the incorporation of the spermatozoon head is a two steps process that includes simultaneous diving, tilt, and plasma membrane degradation of the sperm head into the oocyte and subsequent DNA decondensation.
Fertilization is the process by which a spermatozoon and an oocyte unite to produce a new individual, but many of its aspects are still poorly understood. To be able to fertilize the egg, sperm must attain a fertile state through the capacitation process and the subsequent acrosome reaction (AR). In mammals, this is done during the ascent to the oviduct ampulla, and the passage through the cumulus oophorus and the zona pellucida (ZP) surround- ing the oocytes. However, they can also be induced in adequate medium in vitro. Interestingly, substantial pro- gress in the understanding of the fertilization process came with the development of in-vitro fertilization assays using spermatozoa that were capacitated in vitro and oocytes from which cumulus oophorus and often ZP were removed before insemination. Phase contrast video-microscopy
1,2and electron microscopy images
3provided evidence for the salient phases of fertilization: (i) adhesion of the gametes, (ii) fusion of their membranes, (iii) internalization of the spermatozoon into the oocyte cytoplasm. The sperm regions involved in both the initial association of sperm and egg membranes and membrane fusion were determined
3. An abundant literature dis- cusses sperm motility as the indispensable motor that drives the sperm ascending in the female genital tract up to the locus of fusion on the oocyte membrane
4–7. However, the flagellum movement was never really considered for its possible role in the subsequent gamete interaction phases i.e. adhesion and fusion. A sudden reduction of flagellum beating during gamete interaction is reported
1and this is considered as an indication that fusion process is underway. Insights in the molecular processes underlying fertilization events came with proteomic, genetics and biochemical approaches, even if the molecular and membrane mechanisms underlying membrane fusion are still unknown
8,9. So far, four membrane proteins were proved to be essential: Izumo1 and Spaca6 on the sperm head
10,11, Izumo1’s receptor Juno and Cd9 on the oocyte membrane
12–15. At least three of them (Izumo1, Juno and Cd9) were shown to be involved in the prefusional gamete adhesion phase
12,16–18, but the way they are involved in subsequent membrane fusion is still not elucidated. During the spermatozoon incorporation, some modifications of the oocyte membrane and of the underlying egg cortex were observed
19,20, but no detailed overall
1
Laboratoire de Physique Statistique, Ecole Normale Superieure/PSL Research University, UPMC Univ Paris 06, Université Paris Diderot, CNRS, 24 rue Lhomond, 75005 Paris, France.
2Chimie ParisTech, PSL Research University, CNRS, Institut de Recherche de Chimie Paris (IRCP), F-75005 Paris, France. Correspondence and requests for materials should be addressed to C.G. (email: gourier@lps.ens.fr)
Received: 13 June 2016 accepted: 26 July 2016 Published: 19 August 2016
OPEN
picture of the gamete interaction region is established. Indeed, most of the data collected to elucidate these mech- anisms correspond to snapshots while all the molecular mechanisms underlying the fertilization events are highly dynamical. Interestingly, state of the art optical techniques have the potential to directly provide the dynamics of cell events
21,22. However such real time optical imaging techniques remain marginally used because of the high motility of the spermatozoa and the unpredictable location of sperm/egg fusion that hinder dramatically the use of these imaging techniques.
To overcome these problems, we developed an original experimental approach allowing to image in real time and with the best front view, the sperm/egg interaction zone from the onset contact of the gametes. Fertilization takes place in a microfluidic platform, in which a single spermatozoon is guided to a restricted and predefined region on the egg membrane where it can freely adhere and fuse in conditions as close as possible to physiological.
The sperm/egg interaction zone can be accurately imaged in real time with state of the art optical microscopic techniques. With this approach, an accurate and reproducible timeline of the fertilization events was established.
Surprisingly, it was observed that one specific mode of sperm flagellum beating is a necessary condition for gam- ete fusion. It was demonstrated that to undergo fusion, sperm must apply to the oocyte membrane an oscillating up and down stress by a high frequency oscillating movement of the sperm flagellum. After two minutes of these oscillations, the flagellum stops and one minute later, the membrane fusion occurs. The kinetics and features of the subsequent sperm internalization and nucleus decondensation were accurately obtained. The evolution of sperm membrane alteration during this process was visualized at micrometer scale. The time lag between sperm membrane degradation and DNA decondensation suggests a two steps process where the nuclear enve- lope disruption takes place in a late process independent from sperm membrane degradation. Our microfluidics approach guaranties the best frontal view of the sperm/egg interaction area, and combined with relevant fluores- cent probe, it opens the way to the characterization of any membrane or cortex remodelling occurring in the area of interaction during fertilization.
Results
To determine the timing of gamete interaction (adhesion, fusion and internalization) in mouse and to char- acterize the sequences of the different stages, we performed IVF assays in which one single acrosome reacted spermatozoon capacitated in vitro was selected and paired with depelucidated oocyte in metaphase II. Even if this experimental situation differs from the in vivo one by the absence of the oocyte ZP, it remains close to what happens in vivo once the fertilizing acrosome reacted sperm has crossed the ZP and starts to interact with the oolema of the metaphase II eggs. To be able to select acrosome reacted spermatozoa, we resorted to transgenic mice (Acr-EGFP) expressing Enhanced Green Fluorescent Protein in the sperm acrosome
23,24. Indeed, during AR, acrosomal content among which EGFP is released. When illuminated with 488 nm wavelength that excites GFP, an acrosome intact spermatozoon emits green signal at the location of the acrosome of the spermatozoon head whereas an acrosome reacted one does not
23,24. ZP free oocyte in metaphase II were selected on the basis of the presence of the first polar body. The oocytes were preincubated with Hoechst 33342, a dye excited at 405 nm, commonly used as an indicator that fusion has occurred
25. Indeed, after membrane fusion, the dye present in the egg cytoplasm, can freely diffuse in the sperm head where it progressively binds to sperm DNA and generates increasing blue fluorescent signal.
Specific oscillatory motion of the spermatozoon head during the adhesion phase is required for successful fertilization. We performed individual IVF in a petri dish with two M2 medium droplets, one containing capacitated Acr-EGFP sperm and the other containing ZP-free eggs in metaphase II preincubated with Hoechst 33342 (Fig. 1a).
The petri dish was placed on the stage of a confocal microscope equipped with a micromanipulator holding a micropipette. Based on the absence of EGFP fluorescence, a mobile spermatozoon was taken into the micropi- pette and transferred in the next droplet at the proximity of an oocyte with which it immediately started to inter- act (Fig. 1a–d). The fertilization status was determined on the basis of Hoechst observation on images. Even if all spermatozoa paired with an oocyte were acrosome reacted, only 29% of the paired gametes (26 gamete couples over 90) underwent fusion (Table 1). We however detected a variability of the flagellum movement of the sper- matozoon that was correlated with the fusion rate. Indeed three distinct beating modes were observed (Fig. 2a):
strong whiplashed flagellum oscillations tangential to the oocyte (group 1) (Video 1), low amplitude oscillations
(group 2) (Video 2), and higher amplitude oscillations (group 3) (Video 3) perpendicularly to the oocyte. The
angle spanned by the flagellum (175 ± 10 degrees for group 1, 5 ± 2 degrees for group 2 and 22 ± 6 degrees for
group 3, p < 0,0001) and the beating frequency (0,9 ± 0,2 beat/sec for group 1, 3.2 ± 0,6 beats/sec for group 2 and
1,8 ± 0,2 beat/sec for group 3, p < 0,0001) are significantly different (Fig. 2b,c). While no sperm from group 1
(11 gamete couples) and from group 2 (28 gamete couples) succeeded to fuse, 52% of the spermatozoa from group
3 underwent fusion (26 gamete couples over 51) (Table 1). Interestingly, when the flagella of spermatozoa from
group 3 had their movement hindered by hitting the middle of their flagella with a micropipette (22 gamete cou-
ples) or by being maintained in a micropipette (7 gamete couples), the fusion ability was inhibited (Table 1) even
if the sperm head was laid on the oocyte membrane. These observations reveal a critical role of the of mode flagel-
lum beating for fusion. Flagella oscillations imposed to the spermatozoon head different types of movements that
were likely to influence gamete interaction. Indeed, for spermatozoa from group 1, the wide whiplash movement
of the flagellum induced a rotation of the spermatozoon head, around a pivotal area located in its anterior part,
tangentially to the oocyte membrane (Video 1 for side view, Video 5 for better resolved front view). The adhesion
of the sperm head to the oocyte membrane through this tiny pivotal area was generally robust enough to resist
to the strong driving force imposed by flagella whiplash beats, but not always. It happened occasionally that the
spermatozoon detached from the oocyte membrane after a few minutes (2 times over 11 assays). Because of the
rotating movement of the sperm head, its equatorial region at which the spermatozoon is described to fuse
3,26,
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was mobile on the egg membrane. These conditions were therefore not favourable to the tight contact required for membrane fusion and could explain the systematic fusion failure of this group. For spermatozoa from group 2, the lazy undulations of the flagella did not seem to influence much the position of the sperm head that remained laid and immobile on the oocyte membrane. Its equatorial zone was in contact with the oocyte membrane, how- ever fusion did not happen very rarely suggesting that sperm head motion on the oocyte membrane is a neces- sary condition for subsequent fusion. Spermatozoa from group 3, attached themselves to the oocyte membrane through the anterior part of their head after contact, like spermatozoa from group 1. However, in contrast to the non-fusional rotational movement of the head tangential to the membrane of group 1, the beating of the flagella imposed to the sperm head of group 3 to oscillate in a plane perpendicular to the oocyte membrane with its equatorial part alternatively pressed-on and pulled-off the oocyte membrane. During this oscillating period, it was often observed that the flagellum beating reduced significantly for a few seconds (~3 sec) before restoring its initial oscillation. For fertilizing couples, this oscillating phase never exceeded more than 180 sec. Indeed, after an average time of 113 ± 30 sec, the sperm flagellum suddenly and definitively stopped beating (Fig. 3a). Then, 202 ± 30 sec after this stop, fluorescent Hoechst spots, due to nuclear dyes transfer from the oocyte cytoplasm to the sperm DNA, were systematically observed in the spermatozoon head (Fig. 3a). These precursory indications that fertilization was in progress were confirmed by the penetration of the sperm head into the oocyte cytoplasm, the intensification and size increase of the Hoechst spot during the subsequent 80 minutes, the ejection of the second polar body 6 hours later, and the two cells division 24 hours later (Supplementary Figure S1).
Guided fertilization with customized IVF microfluidic chip. From the status of simple indicator of the fertilization, nuclear dye relocation has the potential to become a powerful tool to determine accurately the onset Figure 1. Principle of IVF assay with single sperm. The top M2 droplet contains capacitated Acr-EGFP sperm, the bottom droplet contains ZP-free oocytes in metaphase II preincubated with Hoechst 33342. (a)- A spermatozoon is trapped into a micropipette. (b)- Its acrosomal status is determined on the basis of EGFP fluorescence. (c)- An acrosome reacted spermatozoon (absence of EGFP signal) is released close to an oocyte.
(d)- Interaction with the oocyte.
Experimental day Group 1 Group 2 Group 3 Group 3
knocked Group 3
immobilized
1 0 (3) 0 (6) 2 (4) — —
2 0 (2) 0 (3) 5 (9) 0 (6) —
3 — 0 (5) 4 (9) 0 (3) —
4 0 (3) — 7 (9) 0 (7) —
5 0 (1) 0 (4) 3 (8) 0 (6) —
6 0 (2) 0 (4) 1 (6) — —
7 — 0 (5) 2 (3) — —
8 — 0 (1) 2 (3) — —
9 — — — — 0 (3)
10 — — — — 0 (4)
Total 0 (11) 0 (28) 26 (51) 0 (22) 0 (7)