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Sperm proteins ODF2 and PAWP as markers of fertility in breeding bulls

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Abstract

Low fertility is the single most important factor limiting livestock reproductive performance, adversely affecting the cattle industry and causing millions of dollars of economic loss. In the livestock industry, male fertility is of crucial importance for the reproductive performance of livestock. However, there is a lack of reliable biomarkers to predict bull fertility in artificial insemination service. The objective of this study was to identify sperm proteins as biomarkers for bull fertility. To discover candidate sperm quality biomarkers, sperm proteome profiling was conducted in extreme high- and extreme low-fertile bulls selected from a pool of 1000 AI sires with varied fertility. Thirty-two differentially expressed proteins were identified. Among them, high levels of sperm outer dense fiber of sperm tails 2 (ODF2) and post-acrosomal assembly of sperm head protein (PAWP/WBP2NL) represented the most extreme differences in quantity between high- and low-fertility bulls. Protein immunodetection and flow cytometry used to validate these putative fertility markers in a combined cohort of 154 AI sires. Both ODF2 and PAWP correlated significantly with fertility. In conclusion, ODF2 and PAWP can be used to assess semen quality and predict sire fertility.

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Funding

This study was funded in parts by Mississippi Agricultural and Forestry Experiment Station, Alta Genetics, Inc.; by the NICHD grant R01HD070044 (to PR); by the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture Grant no. 2021–67015-33404 from the USDA NIFA (to P.S.); by the grant 5 R01 HD084353-02 from NIH National Institute of Child and Human Development (to PS); by the seed funding from the College of Agriculture, Food and Natural Resources, University of Missouri-Columbia (to PS) and by Canadian Institutes of Health Research Grant no. MOP-84440 (to RO); and by Netaji Subhas-Indian Council of Agricultural Research (NAK). The funders had no role in the study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.

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Author notes

  1. Abdullah Kaya, Sule Dogan and Peter Vargovic are equally contributors.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Artificial Insemination and Reproduction, Selcuk University, Konya, Turkey

    Abdullah Kaya

  2. Animal and Dairy Sciences, Mississippi State University, Starkville, MS, 39762, USA

    Sule Dogan, Naseer Ahmad Kutchy & Erdogan Memili

  3. Division of Animal Sciences, University of Missouri, Columbia, MO, 65211, USA

    Peter Vargovic & Peter Sutovsky

  4. St. George’s University, St. George’s, Grenada

    Naseer Ahmad Kutchy

  5. Department of Animal Sciences, University of California, Davis, CA, 95616, USA

    Pablo Ross

  6. Alta Genetics, Inc, Watertown, WI, 53094, USA

    Einko Topper

  7. Queens University, Kingston, ON, Canada

    Richard Oko

  8. Department of Biochemistry Molecular Biology, University of Calgary, Calgary, AB, Canada

    Frans van der Hoorn

  9. Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Women’s Health, University of Missouri, Columbia, MO, 65211, USA

    Peter Sutovsky

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  1. Abdullah Kaya
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  9. Peter Sutovsky
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  10. Erdogan Memili
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Contributions

Conception and design of the study: AK, EM. Sample acquisition and processing: AK, ET. Acquisition, analysis, and interpretation of data: PS, SD, PV, NAK, PR, FH. Drafting the article or revising it critically for important intellectual content: AK, EM, ET, PS, SD, PV, NAK, PR, FH, RO.

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Correspondence to Erdogan Memili.

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Author Einko was employed by the company Alta Genetics, Inc. The remaining authors declare no competing interests.

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Kaya, A., Dogan, S., Vargovic, P. et al. Sperm proteins ODF2 and PAWP as markers of fertility in breeding bulls. Cell Tissue Res 387, 159–171 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00441-021-03529-1

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