ArticleProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America2023
Regulatory T cells play a crucial role in maintaining sperm tolerance and male fertility.
Article in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 28 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
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.
- Autoimmunity and Inflammaging in Male Infertility.Clinical reviews in allergy & immunology · 2026Review
- Maternal Bisphenol S Exposure Impairs Testicular Development and Sperm Function in Male Offspring by Disrupting the Immune-Endocrine Network.Small (Weinheim an der Bergstrasse, Germany) · 2026Article
- Depletion of CX3CR1Mucosal immunology · 2026Article
- Immunological dynamics of the epididymis: from experimental insights to clinical translation.Reproduction & fertility · 2026Review
- Epididymal macrophage senescence contributes to sperm motility decrease upon environmental stress.Science advances · 2026Article
- Innate immune functions of bitter taste receptors across physiological systems.Journal of translational medicine · 2026Review
- Common Environmental Hazards and Male Infertility: Effects on Epididymal Immune Microenvironment.Toxics · 2026Review
- Are infertile men at a higher risk of morbidity and early mortality?Human reproduction (Oxford, England) · 2026Review
- Advances in immunological research on male infertility.Frontiers in reproductive health · 2026Review
- Regulatory T cells in pregnancy disorders: a multi-dimensional framework for biomarkers and therapeutic strategies.Frontiers in immunology · 2026Review
- Immunomodulatory Functions of Intercalated Cells in Kidney Autoimmunity.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2025Article
- Chronic inflammation drives epididymal tertiary lymphoid structure formation and autoimmune fertility disorders in mice.Nature communications · 2025Article
- Short peptide perturbs spermatogenesis via immune microenvironment dysregulation and mitochondrial imbalance.FEBS open bio · 2025Article
- Autoimmune regulator deficiency causes sterile epididymitis and impacts male fertility through disruption of inorganic physiology.Journal of immunology (Baltimore, Md. : 1950) · 2025Article
- A Single-Cell Transcriptome Atlas Characterizes the Immune Landscape of Human Testes During Aging.Aging cell · 2025Article
- Immune Microenvironment Dysregulation: A Contributing Factor to Obesity-Associated Male Infertility.Biomedicines · 2025Review
- Proton-Secreting Cells as Drivers of Inflammation and Sperm Dysfunction in LPS-Induced Epididymitis.Function (Oxford, England) · 2025Article
- Human efferent ductules and epididymis display unique cell lineages with motile and primary cilia.Andrology · 2025Article
- Causal role of immune cells in male infertility: a Mendelian randomization study.Translational andrology and urology · 2025Article
- A lack of commensal microbiota influences the male reproductive tract intergenerationally in mice.Reproduction (Cambridge, England) · 2025Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
10 authors.
Funding
Abstract
Regulatory T cells (Tregs) modulate tissue homeostatic processes and immune responses. Understanding tissue-Treg biology will contribute to developing precision-targeting treatment strategies. Here, we show that Tregs maintain the tolerogenic state of the testis and epididymis, where sperm are produced and mature. We found that Treg depletion induces severe autoimmune orchitis and epididymitis, manifested by an exacerbated immune cell infiltration [CD4 T cells, monocytes, and mononuclear phagocytes (MPs)] and the development of antisperm antibodies (ASA). In Treg-depleted mice, MPs increased projections toward the epididymal lumen as well as invading the lumen. ASA-bound sperm enhance sperm agglutination and might facilitate sperm phagocytosis. Tolerance breakdown impaired epididymal epithelial function and altered extracellular vesicle cargo, both of which play crucial roles in the acquisition of sperm fertilizing ability and subsequent embryo development. The affected mice had reduced sperm number and motility and severe fertility defects. Deciphering these immunoregulatory mechanisms may help to design new strategies to treat male infertility, as well as to identify potential targets for immunocontraception.
Indexed as
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.