Using the Culex pipiens sperm proteome to identify elements essential for mosquito reproduction.

Catherine D Thaler, Kaira Carstens, Gabrielle Martinez, Kimberly Stephens, Richard A Cardullo

PloS one 2023

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Mature sperm from Culex pipiens were isolated and analyzed by mass spectrometry to generate a mature sperm proteome dataset. In this study, we highlight subsets of proteins related to flagellar structure and sperm motility and compare the identified protein components to previous studies examining essential functions of sperm. The proteome includes 1700 unique protein IDs, including a number of uncharacterized proteins. Here we discuss those proteins that may contribute to the unusual structure of the Culex sperm flagellum, as well as potential regulators of calcium mobilization and phosphorylation pathways that regulate motility. This database will prove useful for understanding the mechanisms that activate and maintain sperm motility as well as identify potential molecular targets for mosquito population control. Copyright: © 2023 Thaler et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Citation

Catherine D Thaler, Kaira Carstens, Gabrielle Martinez, Kimberly Stephens, Richard A Cardullo. Using the Culex pipiens sperm proteome to identify elements essential for mosquito reproduction. PloS one. 2023;18(2):e0280013