ERα and ERβ in mouse testicular cells and sperm

0394637 - BTÚ 2014 CZ eng A - Abstract
Dostálová, Pavla - Děd, Lukáš - Pěknicová, Jana
ERα and ERβ in mouse testicular cells and sperm.
Book of abstracts. Praha: Biotechnologický ústav, 2013 - (Pěknicová, J.). s. 22-23
[XIX. Symposium imunologie a biologie reprodukce s mezinárodní účastí. 23.05.2013-25.05.2013, Třešť]
R&D Projects: GA ČR(CZ) GAP503/12/1834
Institutional research plan: CEZ:AV0Z50520701
Keywords : Estrogen receptor α β * Estrogen receptor β * Testicular cells * Spermatogenesis
Subject RIV: EB - Genetics ; Molecular Biology

The presence of „female“ hormone estrogen also in males is known for a long time. The main source of estrogens in males are testis, where both somatic and germ cells are able to converse androgen into estrogen. Several studies showed an important role of estrogens in male reproduction. Among others, estrogens play a role in spermatogenesis and also affect sperm. The precise mechanism of estrogen action in male reproduction is still not fully understood. Generally, estrogens mediate their effects by either genomic or non-genomic pathway. In the first case, estrogen action leads to specific estrogen-dependent gene expression, while in the second case rapid non-genomic signaling using second messengers occurs. Nevertheless, receptors involvement is expected in both cases. To date, two types of classical estrogen receptors (ERs) are known - ERα and ERβ. Further, splice variants with different DNA- and ligand-binding properties and membrane-localized ERs has been found. This make the mechanism of estrogen action more complex than previously considered. Therefore to contribute to better understanding of the estrogen signaling in males, we focus on the identification and characterization of classical ERs and their splice variants in mouse testicular cells and sperm at the protein and mRNA level. According to our results, it seems that ERα occurs only in its full-length variant in testicular cells, while ERβ occurs at least in two splice variants. In the sperm, we localized the signal in acrosomal region and in the tail for both ERs in immunofluorescence study. As in testicular cells, we detected several bands in the sperm cell lysate in western blot study, which probably indicates the presence of several splice variants also in sperm. Taking together, our results of protein and mRNA detection support the hypothesis that not only full-length ERs are expressed in the mouse testis and sperm.
Permanent Link: http://hdl.handle.net/11104/0223160