Anti-SPA17 monoclonal antibody Made to order

Antioxidant supplementation in idiopathic male infertility has a beneficial effect on semen parameters. However, the molecular mechanism behind this effect has not been reported. The objective of this study was to evaluate the sperm proteome of idiopathic infertile men pre- and post-antioxidant supplementation. Idiopathic infertile men were provided with oral antioxidant supplementation once daily for a period of 6 months. Of the 379 differentially expressed proteins (DEPs) between pre- and post-antioxidant treatment patients, the majority of the proteins (n = 274) were overexpressed following antioxidant treatment. Bioinformatic analysis revealed the activation of oxidative phosphorylation pathway and upregulation of key proteins involved in spermatogenesis, sperm maturation, binding of sperm, fertilization and normal reproductive function. In addition, the transcriptional factors associated with antioxidant defense system (PPARGC1A) and free radical scavenging (NFE2L2) were predicted to be functionally activated post-treatment. Key DEPs, namely, NDUFS1, CCT3, PRKARA1 and SPA17 validated by Western blot showed significant overexpression post-treatment. Our novel proteomic findings suggest that antioxidant supplementation in idiopathic infertile men improves sperm function at the molecular level by modulating proteins involved in CREM signaling, mitochondrial function and protein oxidation. Further, activation of TRiC complex helped in nuclear compaction, maintenance of telomere length, flagella function, and expression of zona pellucida receptors for sperm-oocyte interaction.

Cancer/testis (CT) antigens encoded by CT genes are immunogenic antigens, and the expression of CT gene is strictly restricted to only the testis among mature organs. Therefore, CT antigens are promising candidates for cancer immunotherapy. In a previous study, we identified a novel CT antigen, DNAJB8. DNAJB8 was found to be preferentially expressed in cancer stem-like cells (CSCs)/cancer-initiating cells (CICs), and it is thus a novel CSC antigen. In this study, we hypothesized that CT genes are preferentially expressed in CSCs/CICs rather than in non-CSCs/-CICs and we examined the expression of CT genes in CSCs/CICs. The expression of 74 CT genes was evaluated in side population (SP) cells (=CSC) and main population (MP) cells (=non-CSC) derived from LHK2 lung adenocarcinoma cells, SW480 colon adenocarcinoma cells and MCF7 breast adenocarcinoma cells by RT-PCR and real-time PCR. Eighteen genes (MAGEA2, MAGEA3, MAGEA4, MAGEA6, MAGEA12, MAGEB2, GAGE1, GAGE8, SPANXA1, SPANXB1, SPANXC, XAGE2, SPA17, BORIS, PLU-1, SGY-1, TEX15 and CT45A1) showed higher expression levels in SP cells than in MP cells, whereas 10 genes (BAGE1, BAGE2, BAGE4, BAGE5, XAGE1, LIP1, D40, HCA661, TDRD1 and TPTE) showed similar expression levels in SP cells and MP cells. Thus, considerable numbers of CT genes showed preferential expression in CSCs/CICs. We therefore propose a novel sub-category of CT genes in this report: cancer/testis/stem (CTS) genes.