Graduation Year
2021
Document Type
Open Access Senior Thesis
Degree Name
Bachelor of Arts
Department
Molecular Biology
Reader 1
Lisa Petrella
Reader 2
Kyle Jay
Abstract
Sexual reproduction has a conserved flaw in that it is temperature sensitive. Exposure to high temperature leads to male infertility, but little is known about the underlying mechanism. Understanding these mechanisms is important for agriculture and reproductive medicine. Using C. elegans, we investigated two potential aspects of male fertility that may be affected by high temperature conditions: activation of sperm by seminal fluid and sperm mitochondrial activity. There are two pathways for sperm activation in C. elegans: the SPE-8 pathway in hermaphrodites and the TRY-5 pathway in male seminal fluid. Hermaphrodite sperm with a mutation in spe-8 can still be activated by TRY-5 in male seminal fluid, a process called transactivation. Preliminary data indicated that the function of the TRY-5 transactivation pathway was significantly reduced when males were exposed to high temperature. Second, we investigated if high temperature affects the abundance of sperm mitochondria. We observed a significant change in fluorescence intensity reflecting functioning mitochondria when sperm were exposed to 27°C. Our data suggest that both of our tested mechanisms may contribute to male infertility at high temperature.
Recommended Citation
McVay, Jacqueline, "Transactivation and Mitochondrial Activity are Affected by High Temperature in C. elegans Sperm" (2021). Scripps Senior Theses. 1775.
https://scholarship.claremont.edu/scripps_theses/1775
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Biology Commons, Developmental Biology Commons, Genetics Commons, Molecular Genetics Commons
