Word: catsper
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What they discovered was that sperm hyper-activation requires the current produced by CatSper...
According to David Clapham, Castaneda Professor of Cardiovascular Research at Harvard Medical School and the principal investigator of Kirichok’s lab, understanding the function of CatSper can lead to the development of CatSper blockers to serve as contraceptives. Hydra Biosciences, a biotech company co-founded by Clapham, is already developing a drug that would specifically target CatSper...
...CatSper is a wonderful target for contraceptives because it is only in mature sperm,” Clapham wrote in an email. “And blocking its function results in 100 percent infertility…for as long as the drug was in the body?...
First discovered by Clapham’s lab in 2001, the CatSper protein is activated by the higher pH environment of the female cervix. Activated CatSper allow calcium ions to flow into the sperm’s tail. The calcium influx, measurable as an electrical current, alters the way the flagella bends and hyper-activates the tail’s motor proteins. In experiments, mice altered to lack the CatSper protein had weak swimming sperm and were infertile...
...could say CatSper is a kind of Viagra at the cellular level,” Clapham wrote...