Factors Involved in Sperm Fertilizing Capacity in marine invertebrates: molecular Characterization, Controlling of Signal Transduction, and Application for Improving Sperm Fertilizing Ability
1. To identify thelycal factors which are involved in sperm modification during maturation and capacitation process in P. monodon.
2. To characterize sperm maturating/capacitating factors at transcriptional level (molecular cloning) and at translational level (protein sequencing).
3. To study origin and distribution of sperm modifying factors in reproductive tissues.
4. To investigate the involvement of cholesterol efflux and downstream cAMP-PKA dependent signal transduction pathways in sperm capacitation-like process.
5. To search for small capacitation enhancing peptides and use them as the means for improving fertilizing abilty of the sperm
