Amyloid precursor protein interaction network in human testis: sentinel proteins for male reproduction

BACKGROUND: Amyloid precursor protein (APP) is widely recognized for playing a central role in Alzheimer's disease pathogenesis. Although APP is expressed in several tissues outside the human central nervous system, the functions of APP and its family members in other tissues are still poorly understood. APP is involved in several biological functions which might be potentially important for male fertility, such as cell adhesion, cell motility, signaling, and apoptosis. Furthermore, APP superfamily members are known to be associated with fertility. Knowledge on the protein networks of APP in human testis and spermatozoa will shed light on the function of APP in the male reproductive system. RESULTS: We performed a Yeast Two-Hybrid screen and a database search to study the interaction network of APP in human testis and sperm. To gain insights into the role of APP superfamily members in fertility, the study was extended to APP-like protein 2 (APLP2). We analyzed several topological properties of the APP interaction network and the biological and physiological properties of the proteins in the APP interaction network were also specified by gene ontologyand pathways analyses. We classified significant features related to the human male reproduction for the APP interacting proteins and identified modules of proteins with similar functional roles which may show cooperative behavior for male fertility. CONCLUSIONS: The present work provides the first report on the APP interactome in human testis. Our approach allowed the identification of novel interactions and recognition of key APP interacting proteins for male reproduction, particularly in sperm-oocyte interaction. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12859-014-0432-9) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.