Mendonca, T., Birkhead, T.R., Cadby, A.J. orcid.org/0000-0002-5472-8625 et al. (2 more authors) (2018) A trade-off between thickness and length in the zebra finch sperm mid-piece. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 285 (1883). 20180865. ISSN 0962-8452
Abstract
The sperm mid-piece has traditionally been considered to be the engine that powers sperm. Larger mid-pieces have therefore been assumed to provide greater energetic capacity. However, in the zebra finch Taeniopygia guttata, a recent study showed a surprising negative relationship between mid-piece length and sperm energy content. Using a multi-dimensional approach to study mid-piece structure, we tested whether this unexpected relationship can be explained by a trade-off between mid-piece length and mid-piece thickness and/or cristae density inside the mitochondrial helix. We used selective plane illumination microscopy to study mid-piece structure from three-dimensional images of zebra finch sperm and used high-resolution transmission electron microscopy to quantify mitochondrial density. Contrary to the assumption that longer mid-pieces are larger and therefore produce or contain a greater amount of energy, our results indicate that the amount of mitochondrial material is consistent across mid-pieces of varying lengths, and longer mid-pieces are simply proportionately ‘thinner’.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2018 The Authors. Published by the Royal Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/, which permits unrestricted use, provided the original author and source are credited. |
Keywords: | zebra finch; sperm morphology; mitochondrial helix; mid-piece volume; ATP; cristae density |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Sheffield |
Academic Units: | The University of Sheffield > Faculty of Science (Sheffield) > School of Biosciences (Sheffield) > Department of Animal and Plant Sciences (Sheffield) The University of Sheffield > Faculty of Science (Sheffield) > School of Biosciences (Sheffield) > Department of Biomedical Science (Sheffield) The University of Sheffield > Faculty of Science (Sheffield) > Department of Physics and Astronomy (Sheffield) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Sheffield |
Date Deposited: | 07 Sep 2018 10:05 |
Last Modified: | 07 Sep 2018 10:05 |
Published Version: | https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2018.0865 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Royal Society, The |
Refereed: | Yes |
Identification Number: | 10.1098/rspb.2018.0865 |
Related URLs: | |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:135255 |