

August 4, 2011

Research could lead to techniques to improve fertilization in humans


By simulating the natural habitat of the abalone in the laboratory, the scientists were able to determine the conditions under which sperm”“egg encounters and fertilization were most likely to occur.

“If we can understand the basic physics, chemistry and biology of reproduction, then moving from one species to the next is like dotting I’s and crossing T’s,” said the study’s lead author, Richard Zimmer, a UCLA distinguished professor of ecology and evolutionary biology.




“We established that less than 1 percent of an egg’s tryptophan reserves are used by eggs to communicate with sperm,” Zimmer said. “The egg does not want to give up tryptophan. The egg sequesters tryptophan and releases just a whiff “” just enough to attract a sperm. It’s an effective, evolved trick to enhance the likelihood of an encounter between sperm and egg. There is essentially no cost to the egg for this very effective communication system.”


But the success of the egg’s plume in attracting sperm, as well as sperm motility and other elements of the fertilization process, are greatly influenced by ocean flow conditions. Therefore, the biologists analyzed the physics of fluid motion in mediating sperm”“egg interactions.

“The effect is huge, and was previously unsuspected,” said Zimmer, who is a member of UCLA’s neuroscience program. “The physics of fluid motion has a profound consequence on the ability of sperm to navigate and find an egg, and therefore on fertilization. We have identified the principal mechanisms by which eggs and sperm communicate and interact within an environment that has fluid motion. The method by which sperm in humans search for and find an egg seems to be the same process as in abalone. Similar fluid dynamics operate whether in the turbulent ocean environment or within a mammalian reproductive tract.


Zimmer and Riffell, who was formerly a graduate student in Zimmer’s lab, conducted fieldwork at San Diego’s Point Loma. They employed tiny sensors in a novel way, using Doppler acoustic technology to measure fluctuations of fluid motion in the environment where abalone naturally reproduce.


“We now know properties of fluid motion that relate to the forces imposed at a microscopic scale on individual sperm and individual eggs as they interact,” Zimmer said.


“We have theoretical models of what the plumes should look like, and images of eggs with sperm swimming around them,” Zimmer said. “We mapped the empirical data on top of the theoretically predicted plumes. The question was whether sperm’s attraction to eggs could be predicted from our theoretical models of the physics of what the plume looks like. The two mapped onto each other beautifully. The interaction could be predicted.”

Because aspects of fluid flow in coastal ocean environments are remarkably similar to those in the human reproductive tract, the research could lead to methods to identify which human donors’ sperm are the “most vigorous,” with the highest probability of fertilizing an egg, Zimmer said. It may also suggest how to add fluid motion to maximize the probability of sperm fusing with an egg.

The study was funded by the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and UCLA’s Council on Research.




“Sexual reproduction and fertilization are controlled to a significant degree by chemical communication,” Zimmer said. “We are learning how chemical communication occurs.”

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