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A trade-off between thickness and length in the zebra finch sperm mid-piece

The sperm mid-piece has traditionally been considered to be the engine that powers sperm. Larger mid-pieces have therefore been assumed to provide greater energetic capacity. However, in the zebra finch Taeniopygia guttata, a recent study showed a surprising negative relationship between mid-piece l...

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Autores principales: Mendonca, Tania, Birkhead, Tim R., Cadby, Ashley J., Forstmeier, Wolfgang, Hemmings, Nicola
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: The Royal Society 2018
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6083248/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30051869
http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2018.0865
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author Mendonca, Tania
Birkhead, Tim R.
Cadby, Ashley J.
Forstmeier, Wolfgang
Hemmings, Nicola
author_facet Mendonca, Tania
Birkhead, Tim R.
Cadby, Ashley J.
Forstmeier, Wolfgang
Hemmings, Nicola
author_sort Mendonca, Tania
collection PubMed
description The sperm mid-piece has traditionally been considered to be the engine that powers sperm. Larger mid-pieces have therefore been assumed to provide greater energetic capacity. However, in the zebra finch Taeniopygia guttata, a recent study showed a surprising negative relationship between mid-piece length and sperm energy content. Using a multi-dimensional approach to study mid-piece structure, we tested whether this unexpected relationship can be explained by a trade-off between mid-piece length and mid-piece thickness and/or cristae density inside the mitochondrial helix. We used selective plane illumination microscopy to study mid-piece structure from three-dimensional images of zebra finch sperm and used high-resolution transmission electron microscopy to quantify mitochondrial density. Contrary to the assumption that longer mid-pieces are larger and therefore produce or contain a greater amount of energy, our results indicate that the amount of mitochondrial material is consistent across mid-pieces of varying lengths, and longer mid-pieces are simply proportionately ‘thinner’.
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spelling pubmed-60832482018-08-10 A trade-off between thickness and length in the zebra finch sperm mid-piece Mendonca, Tania Birkhead, Tim R. Cadby, Ashley J. Forstmeier, Wolfgang Hemmings, Nicola Proc Biol Sci Behaviour The sperm mid-piece has traditionally been considered to be the engine that powers sperm. Larger mid-pieces have therefore been assumed to provide greater energetic capacity. However, in the zebra finch Taeniopygia guttata, a recent study showed a surprising negative relationship between mid-piece length and sperm energy content. Using a multi-dimensional approach to study mid-piece structure, we tested whether this unexpected relationship can be explained by a trade-off between mid-piece length and mid-piece thickness and/or cristae density inside the mitochondrial helix. We used selective plane illumination microscopy to study mid-piece structure from three-dimensional images of zebra finch sperm and used high-resolution transmission electron microscopy to quantify mitochondrial density. Contrary to the assumption that longer mid-pieces are larger and therefore produce or contain a greater amount of energy, our results indicate that the amount of mitochondrial material is consistent across mid-pieces of varying lengths, and longer mid-pieces are simply proportionately ‘thinner’. The Royal Society 2018-07-25 2018-07-25 /pmc/articles/PMC6083248/ /pubmed/30051869 http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2018.0865 Text en © 2018 The Authors. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Published by the Royal Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/, which permits unrestricted use, provided the original author and source are credited.
spellingShingle Behaviour
Mendonca, Tania
Birkhead, Tim R.
Cadby, Ashley J.
Forstmeier, Wolfgang
Hemmings, Nicola
A trade-off between thickness and length in the zebra finch sperm mid-piece
title A trade-off between thickness and length in the zebra finch sperm mid-piece
title_full A trade-off between thickness and length in the zebra finch sperm mid-piece
title_fullStr A trade-off between thickness and length in the zebra finch sperm mid-piece
title_full_unstemmed A trade-off between thickness and length in the zebra finch sperm mid-piece
title_short A trade-off between thickness and length in the zebra finch sperm mid-piece
title_sort trade-off between thickness and length in the zebra finch sperm mid-piece
topic Behaviour
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6083248/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30051869
http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2018.0865
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