ArticleScience advances2020
RETRACTED: Human sperm uses asymmetric and anisotropic flagellar controls to regulate swimming symmetry and cell steering.
Article in Science advances, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. It has been retracted, and should not be counted. Cited by 28 papers.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
28 citing papers in PubMed.
- Microfluidics for in vitro fertilization: from science to clinical validation.Human reproduction update · 2026Review
- Deep learning-based morphological analysis of human sperm.Medical & biological engineering & computing · 2026Article
- Swimming by Spinning: Spinning-Top Type Rotations Regularize Sperm Swimming Into Persistently Progressive Paths in 3D.Advanced science (Weinheim, Baden-Wurttemberg, Germany) · 2025Article
- Fluid flow reconstruction around a free-swimming sperm in 3D.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2024Article
- The younger flagellum sets the beat foreLife · 2024Article
- Article
- Human sperm rotate with a conserved direction during free swimming in four dimensions.Journal of cell science · 2023Article
- Article
- In situ cryo-electron tomography reveals the asymmetric architecture of mammalian sperm axonemes.Nature structural & molecular biology · 2023Article
- Morphological and Molecular Bases of Male Infertility: A Closer Look at Sperm Flagellum.Genes · 2023Review
- Multi-Illumination Single-Holographic-Exposure Lensless Fresnel (MISHELF) Microscopy: Principles and Biomedical Applications.Sensors (Basel, Switzerland) · 2023Review
- A Preliminary Study on the Evaluation of Human Sperm Head Morphology with a Domestic Digital Holographic Image System.Phenomics (Cham, Switzerland) · 2022Article
- Perspectives on Potential Fatty Acid Modulations of Motility Associated Human Sperm Ion Channels.International journal of molecular sciences · 2022Review
- Revisiting the male gamete's contribution to the conceptus: parental guidance advised.Journal of assisted reproduction and genetics · 2021Article
- Advances in sperm analysis: techniques, discoveries and applications.Nature reviews. Urology · 2021Review
- Reconstruction of the three-dimensional beat pattern underlying swimming behaviors of sperm.The European physical journal. E, Soft matter · 2021Article
- A dynamic basal complex modulates mammalian sperm movement.Nature communications · 2021Article
- Self-adaptive and efficient propulsion of Ray sperms at different viscosities enabled by heterogeneous dual helixes.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2021Article
- Article
- Review
Corrections and comments
- Retraction · 2021-05-01Unreliable Data · Unreliable Results and/or Conclusions · Updated to Retraction ·
- Expression of concern · 2020-08-14Concerns/Issues about Data · Concerns/Issues about Results and/or Conclusions · Updated to Retraction ·
- Expression of concern
- Retracted
Authors and funding
5 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Flagellar beating drives sperm through the female reproductive tract and is vital for reproduction. Flagellar waves are generated by thousands of asymmetric molecular components; yet, paradoxically, forward swimming arises via symmetric side-to-side flagellar movement. This led to the preponderance of symmetric flagellar control hypotheses. However, molecular asymmetries must still dictate the flagellum and be manifested in the beat. Here, we reconcile molecular and microscopic observations, reconnecting structure to function, by showing that human sperm uses asymmetric and anisotropic controls to swim. High-speed three-dimensional (3D) microscopy revealed two coactive transversal controls: An asymmetric traveling wave creates a one-sided stroke, and a pulsating standing wave rotates the sperm to move equally on all sides. Symmetry is thus achieved through asymmetry, creating the optical illusion of bilateral symmetry in 2D microscopy. This shows that the sperm flagellum is asymmetrically controlled and anisotropically regularized by fast-signal transduction. This enables the sperm to swim forward.
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.