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27 July 2016 PiggyBac Transposon-Mediated Mutagenesis in Rats Reveals a Crucial Role of Bbx in Growth and Male Fertility
Chieh-Ying Wang, Ming-Chu Tang, Wen-Chi Chang, Kenryo Furushima, Chuan-Wei Jang, Richard R Behringer, Chun-Ming Chen
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Abstract

Bobby sox homolog (Bbx) is an evolutionally conserved gene, but its biological function remains elusive. Here, we characterized defects of Bbx mutant rats that were created by PiggyBac-mediated insertional mutagenesis. Smaller body size and male infertility were the two major phenotypes of homozygous Bbx mutants. Bbx expression profile analysis showed that Bbx was more highly expressed in the testis and pituitary gland than in other organs. Histology and hormonal gene expression analysis of control and Bbx-null pituitary glands showed that loss of Bbx appeared to be dispensable for pituitary histogenesis and the expression of major hormones. BBX was localized in the nuclei of postmeiotic spermatids and Sertoli cells in wild-type testes, but absent in mutant testes. An increased presence of aberrant multinuclear giant cells and apoptotic cells was observed in mutant seminiferous tubules. TUNEL-positive cells costained with CREM (round spermatid marker), but not PLZF (spermatogonia marker), gammaH2Ax (meiotic spermatocyte marker), or GATA4 (Sertoli cell marker). Finally, there were drastically reduced numbers and motility of epididymal sperm from Bbx-null rats. These results suggest that loss of BBX induces apoptosis of postmeiotic spermatids and results in spermiogenesis defects and infertility.

Chieh-Ying Wang, Ming-Chu Tang, Wen-Chi Chang, Kenryo Furushima, Chuan-Wei Jang, Richard R Behringer, and Chun-Ming Chen "PiggyBac Transposon-Mediated Mutagenesis in Rats Reveals a Crucial Role of Bbx in Growth and Male Fertility," Biology of Reproduction 95(3), (27 July 2016). https://doi.org/10.1095/biolreprod.116.141739
Received: 8 May 2016; Accepted: 1 July 2016; Published: 27 July 2016
KEYWORDS
HBP2
HMG box-containing protein 2
pituitary
spermiogenesis
testis
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