DRC3 is an assembly adapter of the nexin-dynein regulatory complex functional components during spermatogenesis in humans and mice
Shushu Zhou, Shi‐Min Yuan, Jintao Zhang, Lanlan Meng, Xin Zhang, Siyu Liu, Guangxiu Lu, Ge Lin, Mingxi Liu, Yue‐Qiu Tan
Abstract
Male subfertility, a multifactorial disease affecting ~ 7% of the global male population, is usually caused by abnormalities in sperm flagella. The flagella and motile cilia have similar “9 + 2” axonemes and are evolutionarily conserved, being widely distributed in bacteria, archaea and eukaryotes 1 . Cilia defects also lead to primary ciliary dyskinesia (PCD), which affects approximately 1/10,000 individuals worldwide. The nexin–dynein regulatory complex (N-DRC) is a conserved structural protein complex present in the axonemes of cilia/flagella, from algae to humans. Moreover, it is composed of at least 11 components (DRC1–11) and is critical for ciliary/flagellar motility, functioning by linking the outer adjacent duplex microtubules 2 . At present, DRC1/2, crossing the long axis of the N-DRC, combined with DRC4 is considered to form a core complex that acts as a scaffold for the assembly of the “functional subunits”, namely DRC3/5-8/11.