DALLAS, Dec. 2 (UPI) -- Researchers at UT Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas might have stumbled upon an entirely new form of male contraception.
While expanding studies into male infertility, researchers found deleting a particular ion channel from sperm cells causes those cells to lose the power needed for fertilization.
The findings will appear in the Dec. 9 issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
In studies on mice, disrupting a gene that contains a putative calcium-permeable ion channel did not change normal sperm cell production or basic sperm movement. But it did prevent the appearance of a stimulated form of sperm motility, called hyperactivation, normally seen near the time of fertilization.
Sperm cells became incapable of generating the power needed to penetrate an egg cell's outer shell, which is necessary for fertilization.
"The same protein exists in human sperm cells," said Timothy Quill, lead author of the study. "So it is likely that disruption ... would result in infertility in men as well. If a contraceptive drug could be designed that would bind to the protein and block its function, then those sperm cells would be rendered ineffective or infertile."
