Health
The most successful sperm poison their competitors – BBC Focus Magazine
A study in mice has found a genetic variant that gives sperm a 99 per cent success rate – and could explain infertility in human men.
What makes some mice sperm so much more successful than others? Probably not a question youve asked before, but its one thats been answered by researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Molecular Genetics (MPIMG) in Berlin.
When a male mouse carries a genetic variant called t-haplotype, it has a 99 per cent chance of passing it onto its offspring. The researchers found that the sperm carrying this variant give themselves an edge by poisoning their competitors.
If this trait is also found in human…
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