MAIA, Fc receptor–like 3, supersedes JUNO as IZUMO1 receptor during human fertilization

Abstract

Gamete fusion is a critical event of mammalian fertilization. A random one-bead one-compound combinatorial peptide library represented synthetic human egg mimics and identified a previously unidentified ligand as Fc receptor–like 3, named MAIA after the mythological goddess intertwined with JUNO. This immunoglobulin super family receptor was expressed on human oolemma and played a major role during sperm-egg adhesion and fusion. MAIA forms a highly stable interaction with the known IZUMO1/JUNO sperm-egg complex, permitting specific gamete fusion. The complexity of the MAIA isotype may offer a cryptic sexual selection mechanism to avoid genetic incompatibility and achieve favorable fitness outcomes.

Metadata

Authors/Creators:

Vondrakova, J.
Frolikova, M.
Ded, L.
Cerny, J.
Postlerova, P.
Palenikova, V.
Simonik, O.
Nahacka, Z.
Basus, K.
Valaskova, E.
Machan, R.
Pacey, A. https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4387-8871
Holubcova, Z.
Koubek, P.
Ezrova, Z.
Park, S.
Liu, R.
Partha, R.
Clark, N.
Neuzil, J.
Ikawa, M.
Erickson, K.
Lam, K.S.
Moore, H.
Komrskova, K.

© 2022 The Authors, some rights reserved; exclusive licensee American Association for the Advancement of Science. No claim to original U.S. Government Works. Distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0 (CC BY). (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Dates: