Thankfully sperm don’t need to ask for directions

Men never ask for directions, so how do sperm manage to locate the egg ?

Human eggs, already understand the imperfections of the other half, so they have developed a sophisticated signally system. The system sends out the egg’s location, guiding the handsome prince in shining armour to find the egg. Once the egg is located, the signalling system helps the sperm pierce through the multiple layers to form a zygote which develops into an embryo.

Science learns the GPS co-ordinates

For years, scientist have been keen to understand the signalling system, suspecting that in some cases, infertility is caused by a lack of appropriate advertising, on the part of the lady.

The signalling system is a sugar chain with a very fancy name, the sialyl-lewis-x sequence (SLeX). SLeX ties the knot following SEX, to bring the sperm and the egg together to create a brand new being.

Understanding SLeX will be fruitful

Characterizing exactly how the sperm locates, then penetrates the egg’s sugar coat, is expected to help both stop and start pregnancies.

Starting pregnancies will require researchers to find ways to boost the signal, when it is missing or not “loud” enough. Helping the sperm to avoid swimming around in circles desperately searching for the elusive egg, will improve the odds of a couple falling pregnant.

Stopping pregnancies will require the development of jamming equipment. The sperm will keeping searching to no avail. Unable to find the egg, they will eventually succumb to exhaustion. The advantage of cutting the marketing campaign would be fewer hormone disturbances which often produce adverse effects.

The conception of an idea

It will be sometime before this big discovery around the human conception translates into science that can be used.

But is it good to know, the absence of the map reading gene will have no bearing on your ability to procreate. Baby making boils down to marketing not map reading.

Human Sperm Binding Is Mediated by the Sialyl-Lewisx Oligosaccharide on the Zona Pellucida. Science (2011) Poh-Choo Pang, Philip C. N. Chiu, Cheuk-Lun Lee, Lan-Yi Chang, Maria Panico, Howard R. Morris, Stuart M. Haslam, Kay-Hooi Khoo, Gary F. Clark, William S. B. Yeung, Anne Dell.

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