cells Review The Transformation of the Centrosome into the Basal Body: Similarities and Dissimilarities between Somatic and Male Germ Cells and Their Relevance for Male Fertility Constanza Tapia Contreras and Sigrid Hoyer-Fender * Göttingen Center of Molecular Biosciences, Johann-Friedrich-Blumenbach Institute for Zoology and Anthropology-Developmental Biology, Faculty of Biology and Psychology, Georg-August University of Göttingen, 37077 Göttingen, Germany;
[email protected] * Correspondence:
[email protected] Abstract: The sperm flagellum is essential for the transport of the genetic material toward the oocyte and thus the transmission of the genetic information to the next generation. During the haploid phase of spermatogenesis, i.e., spermiogenesis, a morphological and molecular restructuring of the male germ cell, the round spermatid, takes place that includes the silencing and compaction of the nucleus, the formation of the acrosomal vesicle from the Golgi apparatus, the formation of the sperm tail, and, finally, the shedding of excessive cytoplasm. Sperm tail formation starts in the round spermatid stage when the pair of centrioles moves toward the posterior pole of the nucleus. The sperm tail, eventually, becomes located opposed to the acrosomal vesicle, which develops at the anterior pole of the nucleus. The centriole pair tightly attaches to the nucleus, forming a nuclear membrane indentation. An Citation: Tapia Contreras, C.; articular structure is formed around the centriole pair known as the connecting piece, situated in the Hoyer-Fender, S. The Transformation neck region and linking the sperm head to the tail, also named the head-to-tail coupling apparatus or, of the Centrosome into the Basal in short, HTCA.