{"doi":"10.1242/dev.204674","title":"A sperm–oocyte protein partnership required for egg activation in <i>Caenorhabditis elegans</i>","abstract":"Fertilization triggers the completion of female meiosis and launches the oocyte-to-embryo transition. Caenorhabditis elegans spe-11 is one of the few known paternal-effect embryonic lethal genes. We report that the sperm protein SPE-11 forms a complex with an oocyte protein, OOPS-1 (Oocyte Partner of SPE-11) at fertilization, and that the protein complex is required for the completion of meiosis, the block to polyspermy, and eggshell formation. Consistent with the molecular interaction of their encoded proteins, oops-1 and spe-11 exhibit indistinguishable null phenotypes in which fertilized oocytes arrest in meiosis I or meiosis II or fail to complete the actin-based process of meiotic cytokinesis. Biochemical analysis shows that the complex binds F-actin in the absence of other proteins and inhibits the nucleation of actin filaments at substoichiometric concentrations. Both OOPS-1 and SPE-11 are intrinsically disordered proteins that are highly phosphorylated, and biochemical and genetic experiments define interactions with the sperm-specific protein phosphatase 1 homologs GSP-3/4. Genetic results suggest that the cortical EGG complex recruits the OOPS-1-SPE-11 complex at fertilization, which promotes meiotic cytokinesis and in turn activates synthesis of the eggshell.","journal":"Development","year":2025,"id":521305,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":5,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9565,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2025-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":1051420,"name":"Ji Kent Kwah","orcid":null,"position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":442711,"name":"Mark E. Zweifel","orcid":null,"position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":441715,"name":"Naomi Courtemanche","orcid":"0000-0003-4374-4782","position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":398268,"name":"Micah D. Gearhart","orcid":"0000-0002-9873-1930","position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":770232,"name":"Katherine M. Walstrom","orcid":"0000-0002-8896-3850","position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":449646,"name":"Aimee Jaramillo-Lambert","orcid":"0000-0001-7697-8580","position":6,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":360745,"name":"David Greenstein","orcid":"0000-0001-8189-2087","position":7,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":360744,"name":"Tatsuya Tsukamoto","orcid":"0000-0001-5306-3791","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":87,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-19T02:49:44.558743Z","pmid":"40446215","pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}