A comparative study of capacitation-mediated changes in whole mouse sperm proteome

Mammalian spermatozoa acquire fertilizing ability in response to environmental factors enriched in the female reproductive tract, a process called capacitation. During capacitation, sperm undergo physiological changes that are accompanied by functional regulation of sperm proteins. However, the mechanism by which capacitation orchestrates sperm protein functions to modulate physiological characteristics remains unclear. Here, I analyzed capacitation-mediated global proteomic changes in mouse spermatozoa to unravel the underlying molecular association with the biological processes in sperm capacitation. I quantitatively compared 4,587 proteins identified by liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry. Among them, the amounts of 47 and 180 proteins were reduced to over 1.5-fold (p p p p