Dyed to glow green in UV light, oldfield mouse sperm cells gather together.
Posted on 04/24/2010 10:03:41 AM PDT by JoeProBono
In promiscuous mouse species, sperm team up with their closest kin to give themselves an edge in the dash for the egg, a new study finds.
Once inside a female, sperm cells can discern and—via structures on their heads—literally hook up with their brethren amid the crush of sperm from other males. (Related: "How a Man Produces 1,500 Sperm a Second.")
The cells can then draft, Lance Armstrong-style, moving faster than they could alone thanks to more "engine" power from the cluster, said study co-author Heidi Fisher, an evolutionary geneticist at Harvard University's Hoekstra Laboratory.
"It's really amazing that this single cell can do this," Fisher said. "We used to think of sperm as packs of DNA with really fast tails. But [now we know] they're able to make these complex organizations."
Surprisingly, the sperm cells' recognition skills are "incredibly refined," Fisher added: In the experiments, sperm could pick out other sperm from the same male, even when the other sperm were from closely related mice.
Evolution Driving Sperm Teamwork
Fisher and colleague Hopi Hoekstra studied the oldfield mouse, which mates for life, and a related species, the highly promiscuous white-footed mouse. Female white-footed mice will mate with multiple males several times within a minute.
The team extracted sperm from several individuals of each species and mixed two samples in four different combinations. For instance, one experiment mixed sperm from two unrelated oldfield mice while another looked at sperm from two white-footed mouse "brothers." (The sperm carry both male and female chromosomes.)
In each case, sperm from one male was dyed to glow green under UV light, while the other's sperm glowed red.
In both species, sperm formed groups, which swim significantly faster than single cells.
Dyed to glow green in UV light, oldfield mouse sperm cells gather together.
Something I definitely never needed to know.
I guess sperm didn’t get the diversity memo.
Yeah.
Evolution.
That's gotta be it.
Paging Jerry Springer.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U0kJHQpvgB8
nuke the sperm whales!
Get it on boys....
Who knew sperm were so clever?
I meant “anything”. Must remember: Smell Checker is my friend.
“I don’t believe you’re the Rock’s son. I think someone got in there ahead of him.”
I wonder how many millions of taxpayers’ dollars went into this vital research.
And this research would be important for someone to know?
I suppose a promiscuous lady not using safe sex might have an interest in a sperm race within, but she couldn’t influence the outcome.
badaboom!
No way anyone designed this. It just happenened this way. One day one spermy got the idea about drafting, and told all the other spermies about it. And ever since then all the spermies knew to do this. Evolution is unbelievable, ain’t it?
In humans, when the sperm (plural) reach the egg, the “extra” sperm work to create a hole in the wall of the egg so that the one sperm can get in.
This, and the article in discussion, explains why men like football. :)
Female white-footed mice will mate with multiple males several times within a minute.
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I had no idea that there were mice who are Democrats.
Fisher and colleague Hopi Hoekstra studied the oldfield mouse....
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Hopi Hoekstra in the Hoekstra Laboratory. Well, I guess she can hang out there any time she wants.
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