Abstract
Male factor infertility is a complex, multifactorial disease with over 2/3 of the cases being classified idiopathic. The idiopathic category of infertile males includes men who have compromised testicular function resulting in mature sperm with decreased functional parameters. One well established correlate to decreased sperm function is altered protamination in the mature, ejaculated sperm. The process of protamination involves an elegant interplay of several proteins: histones (both canonical and testis-specific), transition proteins, and protamines. Each of these proteins work in concert to ensure that chromatin is packaged efficiently and stably to facilitate normal sperm motility and fertilization, and ultimately, to be able to contribute the paternal genome to the embryo. A developing area of interest in the field of sperm chromatin compaction is elucidating how protamination and retained histones affect the epigenetic status of the mature sperm. Nucleoprotein assays can be broken down into two main categories: assays that involve protein isolation and quantification techniques, and assays that involve in situ staining of nuclear proteins, which are discussed in this chapter.
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Jenkins, T.G., Emery, B.R., Carrell, D.T. (2011). Assays Used in the Study of Sperm Nuclear Proteins. In: Zini, A., Agarwal, A. (eds) Sperm Chromatin. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-6857-9_16
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-6857-9_16
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