Infertility of CD9-deficient mouse eggs is reversed by mouse CD9, human CD9, or mouse CD81; polyadenylated mRNA injection developed for molecular analysis of sperm-egg fusion

CD9 is a membrane protein belonging to the tetraspanin family. Despite CD9's broad tissue distribution, the only abnormality observed in CD9-deficient mice was infertility of females, which was responsible for a defect in the sperm-egg fusion process. However, the function of CD9 in sperm-egg fusion is not clear at all because the technique to analyze the activity of molecules in sperm-egg fusion has not been established. We demonstrated that the exogenous mouse CD9, expressed by polyadenylated mRNA injection at the germinal-vesicle stage oocytes, was precisely localized to the egg plasma membrane, and the expression reversed the infertility of CD9(-/-) eggs. Then, two other tetraspanins, human CD9 and mouse CD81, overexpressed with this technique on CD9(-/-) eggs restored the fertilization rate up to approximately 90 and approximately 50% against that of wild type eggs, respectively. Moreover, in the presence of an anti-mouse CD9 mAb, which blocks sperm-egg fusion, expression of human CD9 or mouse CD81 on eggs also rescued the fusibility. These results suggested that human CD9 plays a crucial role in human fertilization, and mouse CD81 has the potential to compensate for CD9 function in sperm-egg fusion. In addition, the polyadenylated mRNA injection is effective for molecular analysis of sperm-egg fusion.