Heidi Ledford in Nature:
An artificial-intelligence tool honoured by this year’s Nobel prize has revealed intimate details of the molecular meet-cute between sperm and eggs1. The AlphaFold program, which predicts protein structures, identified a trio of proteins that team up to work as matchmakers between the gametes. Without them, sexual reproduction might hit a dead end in a wide range of animals, from zebrafish to mammals.
The finding, published 17 October in Cell, unravels the previous notion that just two proteins — one on the egg and one on the sperm — would be sufficient to ensure fertilisation, says Enrica Bianchi, a reproductive biologist at the University of Rome ‘Tor Vergata’, who was not involved in the study. “It’s not the old concept of having a key and a lock to open the door anymore,” she says. “It’s more complicated.”
More here.
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