Regulated nucleocytoplasmic transport in spermatogenesis: a driver of cellular differentiation?

✍ Scribed by Cathryn Hogarth; Catherine Itman; David A. Jans; Kate L. Loveland

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 2005
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 558 KB
• Volume: 27
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0265-9247
• DOI: 10.1002/bies.20289

✦ Synopsis

This review explores the hypothesis that regulation of nucleocytoplasmic shuttling is a means of driving differentiation, using spermatogenesis as a model. The transition from undifferentiated spermatogonial stem cell to terminally differentiated spermatozoon is, at its most basic, a change in the repertoire of expressed genes. To effect this, the complement of nuclear proteins, such as transcription factors and chromatin remodelling components must change. Current knowledge of the nuclear proteins and nucleocytoplasmic transport machinery relevant to spermatogenesis is consolidated in this review, and their functional linkages are highlighted not only as a means of regulating nuclear protein composition, but also as a key mechanism regulating gene transcription and hence cell fate. Through this, we hypothesize that male germ cell differentiation is mediated through regulation of nuclear transport machinery components,