ArticleMolecular human reproduction2021
Motility of efferent duct cilia aids passage of sperm cells through the male reproductive system.
Article in Molecular human reproduction, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 37 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
37 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 64 citations in OpenAlex.
- European Respiratory Society and American Thoracic Society guidelines for the diagnosis of primary ciliary dyskinesia.The European respiratory journal · 2025Guideline
- Centrosome Protein CCDC81 Promotes Ciliogenesis.Cytoskeleton (Hoboken, N.J.) · 2026Article
- The New Nexin-Dynein Regulatory Complex Component CCDC153 Is Dispensable for Ciliary Motility and Fertility in Mice.Cytoskeleton (Hoboken, N.J.) · 2026Article
- Primary and motile cilia in the efferent ductules: a role for IFT88 in maintaining male fertility.Cellular and molecular life sciences : CMLS · 2026Article
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- A Compound Heterozygous Missense Variant in TheInternational journal of fertility & sterility · 2026Article
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- Article
- Novel DNAH17 Splice-Site Mutations Truncating the AAA6 Domain Cause Asthenozoospermia with MMAF.Reproductive sciences (Thousand Oaks, Calif.) · 2025Article
- Primary ciliary dyskinesia phenotypes and correlation with genotype.Current opinion in pulmonary medicine · 2025Review
- TwoAsian journal of urology · 2025Article
- Primary Ciliary Dyskinesia Due to Compound Heterozygous Variants in CFAP221 with Obstructive Azoospermia: Young's Syndrome May Be a Phenotype of Primary Ciliary Dyskinesia.Internal medicine (Tokyo, Japan) · 2025Article
- Whole genome sequencing enhances molecular diagnosis of primary ciliary dyskinesia.Pediatric pulmonology · 2024Article
- Review
- Review
- ARL13B controls male reproductive tract physiology through primary and Motile Cilia.Communications biology · 2024Article
- TheCells · 2024Article
- [Primary ciliary dyskinesia].Innere Medizin (Heidelberg, Germany) · 2024Review
- Cilia Structure and Function in Human Disease.Current opinion in endocrine and metabolic research · 2024Article
- In vivo dynamic volumetric imaging of mouse testis and epididymis with optical coherence tomography†.Biology of reproduction · 2024Article
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Authors and funding
12 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Motile cilia line the efferent ducts of the mammalian male reproductive tract. Several recent mouse studies have demonstrated that a reduced generation of multiple motile cilia in efferent ducts is associated with obstructive oligozoospermia and fertility issues. However, the sole impact of efferent duct cilia dysmotility on male infertility has not been studied so far either in mice or human. Using video microscopy, histological- and ultrastructural analyses, we examined male reproductive tracts of mice deficient for the axonemal motor protein DNAH5: this defect exclusively disrupts the outer dynein arm (ODA) composition of motile cilia but not the ODA composition and motility of sperm flagella. These mice have immotile efferent duct cilia that lack ODAs, which are essential for ciliary beat generation. Furthermore, they show accumulation of sperm in the efferent duct. Notably, the ultrastructure and motility of sperm from these males are unaffected. Likewise, human individuals with loss-of-function DNAH5 mutations present with reduced sperm count in the ejaculate (oligozoospermia) and dilatations of the epididymal head but normal sperm motility, similar to DNAH5 deficient mice. The findings of this translational study demonstrate, in both mice and men, that efferent duct ciliary motility is important for male reproductive fitness and uncovers a novel pathomechanism distinct from primary defects of sperm motility (asthenozoospermia). If future work can identify environmental factors or defects in genes other than DNAH5 that cause efferent duct cilia dysmotility, this will help unravel other causes of oligozoospermia and may influence future practices in genetic and fertility counseling as well as ART.
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