Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Pharmacology, University of Massachusetts Medical School, Worcester, United States
Jun Yu
Department of Molecular, Cell and Cancer Biology, University of Massachusetts Medical School, Worcester, United States
Mary C Wallingford
Department of Veterinary & Animal Sciences, University of Massachusetts Amherst, Amherst, United States
Darya A Tourzani
Department of Veterinary & Animal Sciences, University of Massachusetts Amherst, Amherst, United States
Jesse Mager
Department of Veterinary & Animal Sciences, University of Massachusetts Amherst, Amherst, United States
Lihua Julie Zhu
Department of Molecular, Cell and Cancer Biology, University of Massachusetts Medical School, Worcester, United States; Program in Molecular Medicine, University of Massachusetts Medical School, Worcester, United States; Program in Bioinformatics and Integrative Biology, University of Massachusetts Medical School, Worcester, United States
Department of Molecular, Cell and Cancer Biology, University of Massachusetts Medical School, Worcester, United States; Program in Molecular Medicine, University of Massachusetts Medical School, Worcester, United States
The X-linked gene Rlim plays major roles in female mouse development and reproduction, where it is crucial for the maintenance of imprinted X chromosome inactivation in extraembryonic tissues of embryos. However, while females carrying a systemic Rlim knockout (KO) die around implantation, male Rlim KO mice appear healthy and are fertile. Here, we report an important role for Rlim in testis where it is highly expressed in post-meiotic round spermatids as well as in Sertoli cells. Systemic deletion of the Rlim gene results in lower numbers of mature sperm that contains excess cytoplasm, leading to decreased sperm motility and in vitro fertilization rates. Targeting the conditional Rlim cKO specifically to the spermatogenic cell lineage largely recapitulates this phenotype. These results reveal functions of Rlim in male reproduction specifically in round spermatids during spermiogenesis.
