The Joint Annual Scientific Meetings of the Endocrine Society of Australia and the Society for Reproductive Biology 2018

The role of the prorenin receptor in male fertility (#372)

Sophia Ahmady 1 , Pascal Bernard 1 , Jo D Merriner 2 , Ai-Leen Chan 2 , Stefan Bagheri-Fam 1 , Robin M Hobbs 2 , Moira K O'Bryan 2 , Andrew J Pask 1 , Dagmar Wilhelm 1
  1. University of Melbourne, Melbourne
  2. Monash University, Clayton, VIC, Australia

The prorenin receptor (PRR) is best known for its role in the renin-angiotensin-system (RAS) to regulate blood pressure and salt homeostasis. However, more recently, PRR has been shown to be a multi-functional protein, which is involved in a number of downstream pathways including MAPK signalling, protein sorting and folding and receptor-mediated endocytosis and recycling through its interaction with the vacuolar H+-ATPase (V-ATPase), as well as canonical and non-canonical WNT signalling. Therefore, we hypothesised that PRR plays a role in gonadal development and function. To test this hypothesis, we deleted Prr specifically in gonadal somatic cells using the Nr5a1-Cre mouse. While these mice appear to develop normally and are born at the expected Mendelian ratio, both males and females are infertile. Here, we present our analysis to date of the testicular phenotype of the conditional Prr-null mice.