As sperm swimming they transform chemic push into motion , the way a car ’s locomotive engine uses flatulency to propel you down the route . Like that engine , the process is complicated — if just one part stops working , the whole system can moil to a halt . This melodic theme might lead to a contraceptive for men that ’s two-sided .
In a study appearing in Science this hebdomad , a team led byHaruhiko Miyata of Osaka Universitydemonstrates that disabling one protein on a sperm cell ’s poop — a sperm - specific form of the enzyme calcineurin — can make the tail too stiff to swim effectively .
What ’s more , we already have two drugs that oppress calcineurin function : cyclosporine A and FK506 , both of which are used to suppress immune reaction in organ transplant patient . Treating male mice with either of these drugs made them sterile , but the mice regained fertility just a week after they were taken off the drugs .
Researchers still need to figure out whether these drugs affect human sperm cell the same way , and find out whether it ’s possible to make a version of either drug that does n’t dissemble the resistant system . In short , it ’ll be a while before we make love whether these finding can be parlayed into a contraceptive pill for guys . But at least we know it ’s possible in hypothesis .
[ Miyata et al . 2015 ]
Image fromDe Blas et al . 2009|CC BY 4.0
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Medicine
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