Protein phosphatase 6 is a key factor regulating spermatogenesis

• Published in: Cell death and differentiation Vol. 27; no. 6; pp. 1952 - 1964
• Main Authors: Lei, Wen-Long, Han, Feng, Hu, Meng-Wen, Liang, Qiu-Xia, Meng, Tie-Gang, Zhou, Qian, Ouyang, Ying-Chun, Hou, Yi, Schatten, Heide, Wang, Zhen-Bo, Sun, Qing-Yuan
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London Nature Publishing Group UK 01.06.2020; Nature Publishing Group
• Subjects: 13/1; 13/109; 13/2; 13/51; 14; 38; 631/208/135; 631/208/199; 64/60; 82; 96; Animals; Apoptosis; Biochemistry; Biomedical and Life Sciences; Cell Biology; Cell Cycle Analysis; Chromatin; Chromatin - metabolism; Clonal deletion; DNA Breaks, Double-Stranded; DNA Repair; Germ cells; Life Sciences; Male; MAP kinase; Meiosis; Mice; Mice, Inbred C57BL; Pachytene; Pachytene Stage; Phosphatase; Phosphoprotein Phosphatases - physiology; Protein phosphatase; Recombination; Spermatocytes; Spermatocytes - cytology; Spermatocytes - metabolism; Spermatogenesis; Stem Cells
• DOI: 10.1038/s41418-019-0472-9
• ISSN: 1350-9047; 1476-5403

Protein phosphatase 6 (PP6) is a member of the PP2A-like subfamily, which plays a critical role in many fundamental cellular processes. We recently reported that PP6 is essential for female fertility. Here, we report that PP6 is involved in meiotic recombination and that germ cell-specific deletion of PP6 by Stra8-Cre causes defective spermatogenesis. The PP6-deficient spermatocytes were arrested at the pachytene stage and defects in DSB repair and crossover formation were observed, indicating that PP6 facilitated meiotic double-stranded breaks (DSB) repair. Further investigations revealed that depletion of PP6 in the germ cells affected chromatin relaxation, which was dependent on MAPK pathway activity, consequently preventing programmed DSB repair factors from being recruited to proper positions on the chromatin. Taken together, our results demonstrate that PP6 has an important role in meiotic recombination and male fertility.