The role of Wnt signaling in male reproductive physiology and pathology.

Accumulating evidence has shown that Wnt signaling is deeply involved in male reproductive physiology, and malfunction of the signal path can cause pathological changes in genital organs and sperm cells. These abnormalities are diverse in manifestation and have been constantly found in the knockout models of Wnt studies. Nevertheless, most of the research solely focused on a certain factor in the Wnt pathway, and there are few reports on the overall relation between Wnt signals and male reproductive physiology. In our review, Wnt findings relating to the reproductive system were sought and summarized in terms of Wnt ligands, Wnt receptors, Wnt intracellular signals and Wnt regulators. By sorting out and integrating relevant functions, as well as underlining the controversies among different reports, our review aims to offer an overview of Wnt signaling in male reproductive physiology and pathology for further mechanistic studies. © The Author(s) 2021. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology. All rights reserved. For permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oup.com.

Citation

Ruizhi Xue, Wenfeng Lin, Jingkai Sun, Masami Watanabe, Abai Xu, Motoo Araki, Yasutomo Nasu, Zhengyan Tang, Peng Huang. The role of Wnt signaling in male reproductive physiology and pathology. Molecular human reproduction. 2021 Jan 22;27(1)

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PMID: 33543289

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