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Molecular Reproduction & Development Volume 83, Issue 7, July 2016
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
molecular reproduction and development
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.745
H-Index - 105
eISSN - 1098-2795
pISSN - 1040-452X
DOI - 10.1002/mrd.22557
Subject(s) - biology , oviduct , sperm , phagocytosis , motility , human fertilization , microbiology and biotechnology , uterus , immune system , sperm motility , andrology , immunology , medicine , endocrinology , anatomy , genetics
Most of the millions of sperm deposited in the uterus by artificial insemination are killed by neutrophils, mainly via active phagocytosis using neutrophil extracellular traps (NETs) that consist of nuclear DNA and proteins. As shown here, these NETs ensnare sperm and hinder their motility, leaving only several hundred sperm free to travel to the oviduct for fertilization. Marey et al (this issue) discovered that locally secreted vasoactive peptide (angiotensin II), together with prostaglandin E2, fine‐tunes the local immune response in the oviduct that regulates sperm phagocytosis by neutrophils .