The social shape of sperm: using an integrative machine-learning approach to examine sperm ultrastructure and collective motility.

ABSTRACT: Sperm is one of the most morphologically diverse cell types in nature, yet they also exhibit remarkable behavioural variation, including the formation of collective groups of cells that swim together for motility or transport through the female reproductive tract. Here, we take advantage of natural variation in sperm traits observed across Peromyscus mice to test the hypothesis that the morphology of the sperm head influences their sperm aggregation behaviour. Using both manual and automated morphometric approaches to quantify their complex shapes, and then statistical modelling and machine learning to analyse their features, we show that the aspect ratio of the sperm head is the most distinguishing morphological trait and statistically associates with collective sperm movements obt

SUBMITTER: Hook KA 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8456146 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature