Evidence for phosphorylation in the MSP cytoskeletal filaments of amoeboid spermatozoa.

ABSTRACT: Nematode spermatozoa are highly specialized cells that lack flagella and, instead, extend a pseudopod to initiate motility. Crawling spermatozoa display classic features of amoeboid motility (e.g. protrusion of a pseudopod that attaches to the substrate and the assembly and disassembly of cytoskeletal filaments involved in cell traction and locomotion), however, cytoskeletal dynamics in these cells are powered exclusively by Major Sperm Protein (MSP) rather than actin and no other molecular motors have been identified. Thus, MSP-based motility is regarded as a simple locomotion machinery suitable for the study of plasma membrane protrusion and cell motility in general. This recent focus on MSP dynamics has increased the necessity of a standardized methodology to obtain C. elegans sperm ext

SUBMITTER: Fraire-Zamora JJ 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3193295 | biostudies-literature | 2011

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature