Meiotic failure in cyclin A1-deficient mouse spermatocytes triggers apoptosis through intrinsic and extrinsic signaling pathways and 14-3-3 proteins

© 2017 Panigrahi et al.This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Cyclin A1 (Ccna1), a member of the mammalian A type cyclins, is most abundantly expressed in spermatocytes and is essential for spermatogenesis in the mouse. Ccna1-deficient spermatocytes arrest at late meiotic prophase and undergo apoptosis. To further delineate the mechanisms and key factors involved in this process, we have examined changes in expression of genes involved in both intrinsic and extrinsic signaling pathways that trigger apoptosis in the mutant spermatocytes. Our results show that both pathways are involved, and that the factors involved in the intrinsic pathway were expressed earlier than those involved in the extrinsic pathway. We have also begun to identify in vivo Ccna1- interacting proteins, using an unbiase