44 posts · 30,923 views
I blog about research articles in sex and reproduction. Topics range from molecular interactions during sex to sexual behaviors of different animals (or plants!).
Brooke LaFlamme
44 posts
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- July 15, 2011
- 01:26 AM
- 1,623 views
Save some of that sperm for later
by Brooke LaFlamme in Molecular Love (and other facts of life)
... Read more »
- August 2, 2011
- 02:40 PM
- 1,462 views
Evolution, sex, and spiky penises
by Brooke LaFlamme in Molecular Love (and other facts of life)
... Read more »
- October 18, 2011
- 02:00 AM
- 1,435 views
Older worms have more sex appeal
by Brooke LaFlamme in Molecular Love (and other facts of life)
As they age, hermaphrodite worms run out of sperm. Males can somehow sense this and find these older, sperm-depleted hermaphrodites to be very sexy indeed.... Read more »
Morsci, N., Haas, L., & Barr, M. (2011) Sperm Status Regulates Sexual Attraction in Caenorhabditis elegans. Genetics. DOI: 10.1534/genetics.111.133603
- November 10, 2011
- 11:03 PM
- 1,266 views
Diatom sperm go fishing for eggs
by Brooke LaFlamme in Molecular Love (and other facts of life)
Did you know that diatoms have sex? I didn’t. ... Read more »
Sato, S., Beakes, G., Idei, M., Nagumo, T., & Mann, D. (2011) Novel Sex Cells and Evidence for Sex Pheromones in Diatoms. PLoS ONE, 6(10). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0026923
- November 4, 2011
- 08:30 AM
- 1,212 views
My, what a big claw you have
by Brooke LaFlamme in Molecular Love (and other facts of life)
Male fiddler crabs wave their giant claws to get the attention of females. Females prefer males that wave a lot, in line with a common theme in female choice: making the male work for it. Waving that big thing around is more than just an advertisement. The thing is heavy to lift, so the male has to be in good shape to keep up all that waving. It’s also dangerous. The more he waves that big sign saying, “Hey, look at me!” the more predators will take notice.
How do males determine how often to wave if too much waving will get them dead, and too little will keep them from getting mates?... Read more »
Milner, R., Jennions, M., & Backwell, P. (2011) Keeping up appearances: male fiddler crabs wave faster in a crowd. Biology Letters. DOI: 10.1098/rsbl.2011.0926
- January 3, 2012
- 02:03 PM
- 1,207 views
Use it or lose it
by Brooke LaFlamme in Molecular Love (and other facts of life)
Female frogs (Xenopus laevis) release their eggs out into the water, where they wait for some lucky sperm to come along and fertilize them. But they don't wait very long. Frog eggs are ticking time bombs that self-destruct after only a few hours if not fertilized. Previously, how this happened was a mystery. Now, new research from Kobe University and (in a separate paper) CNRS in France has found that the eggs die by a well-known mechanism: programmed cell death.... Read more »
Tokmakov, A., Iguchi, S., Iwasaki, T., & Fukami, Y. (2011) Unfertilized frog eggs die by apoptosis following meiotic exit. BMC Cell Biology, 12(1), 56. DOI: 10.1186/1471-2121-12-56
Du Pasquier, D., Dupré, A., & Jessus, C. (2011) Unfertilized Xenopus Eggs Die by Bad-Dependent Apoptosis under the Control of Cdk1 and JNK. PLoS ONE, 6(8). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0023672
- February 17, 2012
- 08:16 PM
- 1,175 views
An unchecked anti-cancer gene wreaks havoc on sperm
by Brooke LaFlamme in Molecular Love (and other facts of life)
Each of us has over 3 billion base pairs of DNA in every one of our cells. And every time a cell divides, there is a risk of making a critical mistake in a few bases that can eventually lead to cancer. That’s why our cells have lots of fail-safes to make sure that we don’t turn into one big tumor by the time we hit puberty. Damaged DNA triggers a response by the gene p53, known as the “guardian of the cell” by some. If p53 decides the damage is too great, it orders the death of the cell, and cancer is averted. But when p53 itself is damaged, this often leads to (or encourages growth of) cancer.
What does this have to do with sex? Research from Haifin Lin’s lab at Yale University has shown that another gene, Pumilio 1, keeps p53 in check in the testes. When Pumilio is deleted in the mouse, p53 goes crazy and starts sending helpless little sperm cells to their deaths, causing fertility defects and shrunken testes. The research was published this week in the journal Current Biology.... Read more »
Chen, D., Zheng, W., Lin, A., Uyhazi, K., Zhao, H., & Lin, H. (2012) Pumilio 1 Suppresses Multiple Activators of p53 to Safeguard Spermatogenesis. Current Biology. DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2012.01.039
- September 23, 2011
- 06:52 PM
- 1,173 views
Inbred females have more fun
by Brooke LaFlamme in Molecular Love (and other facts of life)
... Read more »
- January 8, 2012
- 02:19 PM
- 1,135 views
Connecting the dots between anal fin "egg spots" and fights in male cichlids
by Brooke LaFlamme in Molecular Love (and other facts of life)
The largest group of cichlid species is the haplochromine cichlids (roughly 1500 species). A feature of many haplochromines are the colorful “egg spots” on the anal fin of males. Tons of studies have been done trying to pin down exactly what these spots are used for. Some studies have suggested that females prefer males with more egg spots, for various potential reasons, but this is still an unsettled issue.
Now, a paper by Anya Theis, Walter Salzburger, and Bernd Egger from the Unviersity of Basel (published this month in PLoS One) argues that egg spots can be used for male-male competition. The jist: the fewer egg spots a male has, the more likely it is he’s going to be attacked by other males.... Read more »
Theis, A., Salzburger, W., & Egger, B. (2012) The Function of Anal Fin Egg-Spots in the Cichlid Fish Astatotilapia burtoni. PLoS ONE, 7(1). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0029878
- October 25, 2011
- 09:42 AM
- 1,123 views
Chivalry is not dead, at least among crickets
by Brooke LaFlamme in Molecular Love (and other facts of life)
Males of many species “guard” females after they’ve mated, presumably to prevent them from mating with other males. But in the cricket Gryllus campestris, males have a more noble intent when they guard their mate: to save her from being eaten.... Read more »
Rodríguez-Muñoz, R., Bretman, A., & Tregenza, T. (2011) Guarding Males Protect Females from Predation in a Wild Insect. Current Biology. DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2011.08.053
- February 20, 2012
- 10:24 PM
- 1,082 views
Worm sperm protein turns sperm on, then keeps rival sperm off
by Brooke LaFlamme in Molecular Love (and other facts of life)
I recently wrote about a paper describing a protease in worm seminal fluid that helps activate male sperm in a species with males and hermaphrodites. Now, another group has published a (sort of) follow-up. They found a protease inhibitor that blocks the protease found in the first paper (Try-5), but in a different species of worm. They also show that it has two roles: one in turning sperm on, the other in turning them off. The research was published ahead of print in PNAS January 31, 2012.... Read more »
Zhao, Y., Sun, W., Zhang, P., Chi, H., Zhang, M., Song, C., Ma, X., Shang, Y., Wang, B., Hu, Y.... (2012) Nematode sperm maturation triggered by protease involves sperm-secreted serine protease inhibitor (Serpin). Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 109(5), 1542-1547. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1109912109
- March 10, 2012
- 12:26 PM
- 1,036 views
Mama's boys: How fig wasp mothers protect their sons
by Brooke LaFlamme in Molecular Love (and other facts of life)
I recently read this paper about fig wasps. The paper by Hui Yu and Stephen G. Compton was published in PLoS One. But it’s more than just a scientific paper. It’s a love story: fig and wasp, destined to be together and mutually dependent on each other for continued survival. It’s also about the love of a mother for her sons. And every love story has its tragedy. In this case, it’s the free-loading enemy wasps that kill the love-children of the wasp/fig romance and force the wasp mother to choose which children to protect.... Read more »
Yu, H., & Compton, S. (2012) Moving Your Sons to Safety: Galls Containing Male Fig Wasps Expand into the Centre of Figs, Away From Enemies. PLoS ONE, 7(1). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0030833
- February 15, 2012
- 02:58 PM
- 997 views
Dynein proteins give fly sperm a competitive edge
by Brooke LaFlamme in Molecular Love (and other facts of life)
More often than you might expect, new genes become male-specific and play important roles in male fertility. These genes get fast-tracked, becoming quickly “fixed” in the population because of the advantage they give to the boys in that age-old competition: who can make the most babies. New research into a group of newly evolved sperm genes in Drosophila melanogaster shows just how quickly new genes can become indispensable. The research was published last week in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.... Read more »
Yeh, S., Do, T., Chan, C., Cordova, A., Carranza, F., Yamamoto, E., Abbassi, M., Gandasetiawan, K., Librado, P., Damia, E.... (2012) Functional evidence that a recently evolved Drosophila sperm-specific gene boosts sperm competition. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 109(6), 2043-2048. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1121327109
- December 1, 2011
- 11:37 AM
- 992 views
Wolbachia gives eggs a boost
by Brooke LaFlamme in Molecular Love (and other facts of life)
Wolbachia are a type of bacteria that live inside the cells of many animals, but mostly insects. They are passed on from mother to child through the mother’s eggs.
They can often be bad for the insect host: they might kill all male offspring, destroy the host’s gonads, or make it harder for the host female to make eggs with sub-par blood. This is why Wolbachia has been pursued as a potential tool for reducing mosquito populations that carry dangerous human pathogens like Dengue virus and malaria.
On the other hand, Wolbachia can be a good thing for the host. In some species, Wolbachia infection can protect the host from viral infections. And, as a new paper in the journal Science demonstrates, they can ramp up the host female’s egg production by increasing the activity of the germline stem cells.... Read more »
Fast, E., Toomey, M., Panaram, K., Desjardins, D., Kolaczyk, E., & Frydman, H. (2011) Wolbachia Enhance Drosophila Stem Cell Proliferation and Target the Germline Stem Cell Niche. Science, 334(6058), 990-992. DOI: 10.1126/science.1209609
- April 1, 2012
- 12:04 AM
- 950 views
Male pygmy hippos control sex ratio with their sperm
by Brooke LaFlamme in Molecular Love (and other facts of life)
Okay, I’ll admit it: I’m using this paper as an excuse to post pymy hippopotamus pictures. They’re so cute! But, besides the cuteness of miniature hippos, the science in this paper is also really cool. Joseph Saragusty and colleagues at the Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research, along with Tim Bouts of the Zoological Society of London discovered that male pygmy hippos can control the ratio of female-to-male offspring they father. The paper was published in the February 28 issue of Nature Communications.... Read more »
Saragusty, J., Hermes, R., Hofer, H., Bouts, T., Göritz, F., & Hildebrandt, T. (2012) Male pygmy hippopotamus influence offspring sex ratio. Nature Communications, 697. DOI: 10.1038/ncomms1700
- November 26, 2011
- 01:38 PM
- 851 views
A protein in worm semen is an “on” switch for sperm
by Brooke LaFlamme in Molecular Love (and other facts of life)
If you’ve perused the other posts on this site, you may have noticed that I have a thing for seminal fluid. That’s because semen is awesome: it’s full of proteins, lipids, sugars, and who knows what else, all of which plays some role in fertility.
Exactly what all that stuff is doing is still a total mystery (except for a very few rare cases).
Unfortunately, just picking out one protein and asking, “what happens if I break this?” doesn’t seem to work in most cases. One reason for this could be that there are tons of fail-safes built in. After all, if destroying the function of any one protein could cause infertility, making babies would be a lot more difficult.
... Read more »
Smith, J., & Stanfield, G. (2011) TRY-5 Is a Sperm-Activating Protease in Caenorhabditis elegans Seminal Fluid. PLoS Genetics, 7(11). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pgen.1002375
- June 28, 2011
- 01:00 AM
- 845 views
Eggs compete for sperm in an ancient plant species
by Brooke LaFlamme in Molecular Love (and other facts of life)
... Read more »
- June 28, 2011
- 01:00 AM
- 836 views
Eggs compete for sperm in an ancient plant species
by Brooke LaFlamme in Molecular Love (and other facts of life)
In some plants, multiple gametophytes can develop in a single ovule and compete for the chance to be fertilized. This may have been an ancient strategy in plants to ensure the most fit eggs were used to make seeds, but it was lost in most plant species that survive today. ... Read more »
Bachelier, J., & Friedman, W. (2011) Female gamete competition in an ancient angiosperm lineage. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1104697108
- April 30, 2012
- 01:36 PM
- 761 views
The evolution perspective: Do antidepressants do more harm than good?
by Brooke LaFlamme in Molecular Love (and other facts of life)
A review of the pros and cons of antidepressant medication for treatment of major depression appeared this past week in the journal Frontiers in Evolutionary Psychology. The authors, Paul W. Andrews, J. Anderson Thomas Jr., Ananda Amstadter, and Michael C. Neale, use an evolutionary perspective combined with medical data to evaluate whether prescribing antidepressants should be the first choice of doctors to treat depression, as it currently is. They conclude that antidepressant medication can do more harm than good, and should be reserved for only the most serious cases (you can read the full text here).
The authors point out that most antidepressant drugs disrupt the way the neurotransmitter serotonin is used in the brain. Since serotonin is very conserved across evolutionary time (it evolved at least 1 billion years ago), and it is involved in many important processes in the body, disrupting it could have major negative effects. Some of these effects are: causing neuronal damage, bleeding, stroke, low blood sodium, and adverse sexual effects.... Read more »
Andrews PW, Thomson JA Jr, Amstadter A, & Neale MC. (2012) Primum non nocere: an evolutionary analysis of whether antidepressants do more harm than good. Frontiers in psychology, 117. PMID: 22536191
- January 16, 2012
- 01:17 PM
- 680 views
Slicing up seminal proteins
by Brooke LaFlamme in Molecular Love (and other facts of life)
After only about 5 and half years in graduate school, I finally have my very own first-author research article. If you’re curious what this paper is about, but have absolutely no desire to read it, you’re in luck! I’m not going to go through a play-by-play with this paper because, while I think the results are really cool, I also feel like I already wrote the thing. But I will summarize why the paper is an important step in our continuing quest to figure out what the hell is going on in the seminal fluid.... Read more »
LaFlamme, B., Ravi Ram, K., & Wolfner, M. (2012) The Drosophila melanogaster Seminal Fluid Protease “Seminase” Regulates Proteolytic and Post-Mating Reproductive Processes. PLoS Genetics, 8(1). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pgen.1002435
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