Intracellular signaling cascades induced by relaxin in the stimulation of capacitation and acrosome reaction in fresh and frozen-thawed bovine spermatozoa

Physiological roles of relaxin in prefertilizing activities of spermatozoa

“…4;Miah et al, 2008Miah et al, , 2011. These studies revealed that relaxin enhanced in vitro capacitation of porcine and bovine spermatozoa and induced acrosome reaction.…”

“…Relaxin has important roles in improving sperm motility in human (Lessing et al, 1985), porcine (Juang et al, 1989;Kohsaka et al, 2001;Miah et al, 2006aMiah et al, ,b, 2008Han et al, 2006) and bovine spermatozoa (Miah et al, 2007). However, the role of relaxin in other sperm physiological events or phenomena like capacitation, acrosome reaction, and their mediating factors associated with successful fertilization were unknown prior to our recent investigations (Miah et al, 2011). Moreover, there are limited reviews discussing the effects of relaxin on sperm physiology.…”

“…Statistically significant difference is expressed as * (P < 0.05) or ** (P < 0.01) between the groups or in the same incubation period. This figure was reproduced from Miah et al (2011). present in the female reproductive tract, especially in the uterus, oviduct and the oocyte, which trigger certain physiological changes in the spermatozoon, hence increasing the probability of oocyte fertilization.…”

“…7; Miah et al, 2008Miah et al, , 2011. The cholesterol efflux in the fresh and frozen-thawed bovine spermatozoa was mediated with relaxin in a time-dependent manner (Miah et al, 2011).…”

“…(Harrison et al, 1996;Green and Watson, 2001), Ca 2+ -influx (Visconti and Kopf, 1998), activation of ion channels (Florman et al, 1998), generation of reactive oxygen species (de Lamirande et al, 1997), accumulation of intracellular cAMP (Rogers and Garcia, 1979) and induction of protein tyrosine phosphorylation (Naz, 1996). In attempts to understand the intracellular signaling cascades induced by relaxin, we investigated its effect on cholesterol efflux, Ca 2+ -influx, intracellular cAMP and protein tyrosine phosphorylation in fresh and frozen-thawed bovine spermatozoa (Miah et al, 2011). Relaxin works through a variety of intracellular second messengers, though the molecular signals activated by relaxin vary depending on the cell type (Meera et al, 1995;Piedras-Renteria et al, 1997a).…”