Sperm help ‘persuade’ the female to accept pregnancy
Karin Henseler, Pixabay
Sperm are generally viewed as having just one action in reproduction – to fertilise the female’s egg – but studies at the University of ÐÂÀ˲ÊƱ are overturning that view.
Published in Nature Research journal , new research shows that sperm also deliver signals directly to the female reproductive tissues to increase the chances of conception.
Robinson Research Institute’s Professor Sarah Robertson, who led the project, said: “This research is the first to show that the female immune response is persuaded by signals in sperm to allow the male partner to fertilise her eggs and conceive a pregnancy.
“This overturns our current understanding of what sperm are capable of – they are not just carriers of genetic material, but also agents for convincing the female to invest reproductive resources with that male.â€
It has been known that proteins in seminal fluid modulate the female immune response at conception to encourage her body to accept the foreign embryo. Whether sperm affect this response has not been clear until now