Meiotic completion of the spermatocytes requires the kinase WNK1

The kinase protein WNK1 is highly expressed and phosphorylated in the testis, suggesting possible functions in regulating male fertility. Indeed, conditional pachytene-spermatocyte Wnk1 knock-out mice generated using the novel Wnt7a-Cre failed to produce functional sperm which resulted from the primary spermatogenic arrest during mid-pachynema. Global transcriptomic approaches identified ‘translation’ as one of the impacted events in Wnk1-depleted spermatocytes. scRNA-seq profiling of Wnk1-depleted and control spermatocytes