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Spermatozoa develop in the seminiferous tubules of the testes. During their development the spermatogonia proceed through meiosis to become spermatozoa. Many changes occur during this process: the DNA in nuclei becomes condensed; the acrosome develops as a structure close to the nucleus. The acrosome is derived from the Golgi apparatus and contains hydrolytic enzymes important for fusion of the spermatozoon with an egg cell. During spermiogenesis the nucleus condenses and changes shape. Abnormal shape change is a feature of sperm in male infertility. The acroplaxome is the name that has been given to describe a structure that is found between the acrosomal membrane and the nuclear membrane (Kierszenbaum et al., 2003). The acroplaxome contains structural proteins including keratin 5, F-actin (Kierszenbaum et al., 2003) and profilin IV ( Obermann et al., 2004).

[edit] References

• Kierszenbaum AL, Rivkin E, Tres LL. Acroplaxome, an F-actin-keratin-containing plate, anchors the acrosome to the nucleus during shaping of the spermatid head. Mol Biol Cell. 2003 Nov;14(11):4628-40. http://www.molbiolcell.org/cgi/content/full/14/11/4628
• Kierszenbaum AL, Tres LL. The acrosome-acroplaxome-manchette complex and the shaping of the spermatid head. Arch Histol Cytol. 2004 Nov;67(4):271-84. Review.

PubMed PMID: 15700535. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/14551252?ordinalpos=13&itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_DefaultReportPanel.Pubmed_RVDocSum

• Obermann H, Raabe I, Balvers M, Brunswig B, Schulze W, Kirchhoff C. Novel

testis-expressed profilin IV associated with acrosome biogenesis and spermatid elongation. Mol Hum Reprod. 2005 Jan;11(1):53-64. http://molehr.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/full/11/1/53