Mutations in CFAP43 and CFAP44 cause male infertility and flagellum defects in Trypanosoma and human

作者：Charles Coutton, Alexandra S. Vargas, Amir Amiri‐Yekta, Zine‐Eddine Kherraf, Sélima Fourati Ben Mustapha, Pauline Le Tanno, Clémentine Wambergue-Legrand, Thomas Karaouzène, Guillaume Martinez, Serge Crouzy, Abbas Daneshipour, Seyedeh Hanieh Hosseini, Valérie Mitchell, Lazhar Halouani, Ouafi Marrakchi, Mounir Makni, Habib Latrous, Mahmoud Kharouf, Jean‐François Deleuze, Anne Boland, Sylviane Hennebicq, Véronique Satre, Pierre‐Simon Jouk, Nicolas Thierry‐Mieg, Béatrice Conne, Denis Dacheux, Nicolas Landrein, Alain Schmitt, Laurence Stouvenel, Patrick Lorès, Elma El Khouri, Serge P. Bottari, Julien Fauré, Jean‐Philippe Wolf, Karin Pernet‐Gallay, Jessica Escoffier, Hamid Gourabi, Derrick R. Robinson, Serge Nef, Emmanuel Dulioust, Raoudha Zouari, Mélanie Bonhivers, Aminata Touré, Christophe Arnoult, Pierre F. Ray · 发表于：Nature Communications · 年份：2018 · 被引用次数：246 · 研究领域：Trypanosoma species research and implications、Genetic and Clinical Aspects of Sex Determination and Chromosomal Abnormalities、Genetics and Neurodevelopmental Disorders

Spermatogenesis defects concern millions of men worldwide, yet the vast majority remains undiagnosed. Here we report men with primary infertility due to multiple morphological abnormalities of the sperm flagella with severe disorganization of the sperm axoneme, a microtubule-based structure highly conserved throughout evolution. Whole-exome sequencing was performed on 78 patients allowing the identification of 22 men with bi-allelic mutations in DNAH1 (n = 6), CFAP43 (n = 10), and CFAP44 (n = 6). CRISPR/Cas9 created homozygous CFAP43/44 male mice that were infertile and presented severe flagellar defects confirming the human genetic results. Immunoelectron and stimulated-emission-depletion microscopy performed on CFAP43 and CFAP44 orthologs in Trypanosoma brucei evidenced that both proteins are located between the doublet microtubules 5 and 6 and the paraflagellar rod. Overall, we demonstrate that CFAP43 and CFAP44 have a similar structure with a unique axonemal localization and are necessary to produce functional flagella in species ranging from Trypanosoma to human.