Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

  • Brief Communication
  • Published:

Development

Ubiquitin tag for sperm mitochondria

Abstract

Like other mammals, humans inherit mitochondria from the mother only, even though the sperm contributes nearly one hundred mitochondria to the fertilized egg. In support of the idea that this strictly maternal inheritance of mitochondrial DNA arises from the selective destruction of sperm mitochondria1,2, we show here that sperm mitochondria inside fertilized cow and monkey eggs are tagged by the recycling marker protein ubiquitin3. This imprint is a death sentence that is written during spermatogenesis and executed after the sperm mitochondria encounter the egg's cytoplasmic destruction machinery.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Access options

Rent or buy this article

Prices vary by article type

from$1.95

to$39.95

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Figure 1: Ubiquitination of sperm mitochondria in mammalian zygotes and embryos.

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  1. Hutchinson, C. A., Newbold, J. E. & Potter, S. S. Nature 251, 536–538 (1974).

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  2. Giles, R. E., Blanc, H., Cann, H. M. & Wallace, D. C. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 77 6715–6719 (1980).

    Article  CAS  ADS  Google Scholar 

  3. Ciechanover, A. Cell 79, 13–21 (1994).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  4. Perreault, S. D., Wolf, R. A. & Zirkin, B. R. Dev. Biol. 101, 160–167 (1984).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  5. Szöllösi, D. J. Exp. Zool. 159, 367–378 (1965).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  6. Sutovsky, P., Navara, C. S. & Schatten, G. Biol. Reprod. 55, 1195–1205 (1996).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  7. Cummins, J. M., Wakayama, T. & Yanagimachi, R. Zygote 5, 301–308 (1997).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  8. Gyllensten, U., Wharton, D., Josefsson, A. & Wilson, A. C. Nature 352 255–257 (1991).

    Article  CAS  ADS  Google Scholar 

  9. Kaneda, H. et al. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 92, 4542–4546 (1995).

    Article  CAS  ADS  Google Scholar 

  10. Fisk, H. A. & Yaffe, M. P. J. Cell Biol. 145, 1199–1208 (1999).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  11. Choongkittaworn, N. M., Kim, K. H., Danner, D. B. & Griswold, M. D. Biol. Reprod. 49, 300–310 (1993).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  12. Kato, Y. et al. Science 282, 2095–2098 (1998).

    Article  CAS  ADS  Google Scholar 

  13. Renard, J. P. et al. Lancet 353, 1489–1491 (1999).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  14. Barrit, J. et al. Fertil. Steril. 72, 31–32 (1999).

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Gerald Schatten.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Sutovsky, P., Moreno, R., Ramalho-Santos, J. et al. Ubiquitin tag for sperm mitochondria. Nature 402, 371–372 (1999). https://doi.org/10.1038/46466

Download citation

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/46466

This article is cited by

Comments

By submitting a comment you agree to abide by our Terms and Community Guidelines. If you find something abusive or that does not comply with our terms or guidelines please flag it as inappropriate.

Search

Quick links

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing