Journal
ENDOCRINOLOGY
Volume 152, Issue 10, Pages 3952-3962Publisher
ENDOCRINE SOC
DOI: 10.1210/en.2011-0237
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Funding
- Grant-in-Aid for Challenging Exploratory Research [21658100]
- Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research on Innovative Areas [22112509]
- The Sumitomo Foundation [101069]
- Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology of Japan
- The Naito Foundation
- Japanese environmental agency [Ex-TEND2005 FS]
- Suntory Institute for Bioorganic Research
- Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research [21658100, 22580322, 22112509] Funding Source: KAKEN
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Because of the presence of sperm-storage tubules (SST) in the utero-vaginal junction (UVJ) in the oviduct, once ejaculated sperm have entered the female reproductive tract, they can survive for a prolonged time in domestic birds, although the specific mechanisms involved in the sperm uptake into, maintenance within, and controlled release from the SST remain to be elucidated. In this report, we provide evidence that progesterone triggers the release of the resident sperm from the SST in the UVJ. The ultrastructural observation of the SST indicated that the resident sperm are released from the SST around 20 h after oviposition. When laying birds were injected with progesterone, most of the sperm were released from the SST within 1 h of injection. In situ hybridization analyses demonstrated the presence of the transcripts of membrane progestin receptor alpha in the UVJ, and the translated proteins were detected in the UVJ extracts by Western blotting. Moreover, the number of secretory granules in the SST epithelial cells fluctuates during the ovulatory cycle, and the progesterone administration mimics this phenomena. A binding assay using [(3)H]-progesterone indicated the presence of a high affinity, limited capacity, saturable and single binding site for [(3)H]-progesterone in the membrane fraction of the UVJ, and this receptor did not interact with the synthetic antiprogestin RU486. These results demonstrated for the first time that the progesterone stimulates the release of the resident sperm from the SST and that the release of the sperm might occur via membrane progestin receptor alpha-mediating signal transduction. (Endocrinology 152: 3952-3962, 2011)
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