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Some sperm Cells are ruthless manipulators who will literally poison their competition in the race to fertilize an egg, new research shows.
In a study published on February 4 in the journal PLOS Genetics, researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Molecular Genetics (MPIMG) in Berlin studied mouse sperm under microscope to better understand the effects of DNA sequence known as the t haplotype. The team knew from previous research that sperm carrying this sequence tended to swim straighter (rather than in death circles) and faster on average than competing sperm without it.
Now, they have found that the tactics of these highly effective sperm are a little less athletic.
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“Sperm with haplotype t manage to deactivate sperm without it”, study co-author Bernhard Herrmann, director at MPIMG, said in a press release. “The trick is that the haplotype t” poisons “all the sperm, but at the same time produces an antidote, which acts only on the sperm t [those with the t-haplotype] and protects them. “
The result, Herrmann said, is a bit like a marathon “in which all participants are given poisoned drinking water,” but only certain runners have access to the antidote.