Introductory Chapter: Spermatozoa - Facts and Perspectives

Abstract

Sperm cells (SPZ) are derived from spermatogenesis, a highly regulated developmental process starting from diploid precursors—spermatogonial stem cells—that undergo strictly orchestrated mitotic and meiotic divisions to form round spermatids. Extensive morphological and biochemical transformations in post-meiotic phase are required to differentiate round spermatids into highly specialized SPZ [1–3]. Thus, during spermiogenesis, the round spermatids transform into specialized and polarized cells that exhibit: at proximal end, the head containing an elongated and transcriptionally inactive nucleus which is apically surrounded by the Golgi-derived acrosome, and at the distal end, a tail surrounded at its proximal midpieces by mitochondrial sheet. A part from acrosome biogenesis, the spermiogenesis accounts for a radical chromatin remodeling that causes genome silencing [4] through histone replacement with transition proteins, firstly, and protamines later, to obtain a tightly packaged chromatin [5]. In parallel, a global reorganization of cytoplasmatic/cytoskeleton architecture drives elongation step with the development of a flagellum and the formation of cytoplasmic droplets which contain the excess cytoplasm.