Stephanie Pappas is a contributing writer for Live Science, covering topics ranging from geoscience to archaeology to the human brain and behavior.
For the first time, researchers have unraveled the structure of a protein that enables sperm to swim.
"We know that this protein is essential for sperm motility and thus male fertility, from studies ranging from sea urchin up to mouse and human," Christina Paulino, a structural biologist at Heidelberg University Biochemistry Center in Germany, told Live Science. Paulino and her team used a technique called cryo-electron microscopy to study the protein. In this technique, samples are cooled to below minus 243.4 degrees Fahrenheit , and a beam of electrons passes through them to make high-resolution images of the protein's complex twist and turns.
"This is remarkable, as the transporter has adopted or hijacked another building block usually only found in another class of membrane transporters, namely ion channels," Paulino said.
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