News

News from ECRO 2023 in Nijmegen

Oktober 6, 2023

7 members of the Chemosensation laboratory attended the annual meeting of the European Chemoreception Research Organization (ECRO). They represented the lab in full forces: Victoria, Christoph, Johanna and Moritz successfully presented their projects on posters. Additionally, Victoria, Andres and Moritz organized a symposium called ‚Novel perspectives in mouse olfaction‘, inviting junior group leaders to present their current work. The Spehr lab was represented with a talk in this symposium held by Friederike.
Johanna received a ECRO travel grant to cover for her expenses. Congrats Johanna!

News from the ETW2023

Juni 18, 2023

Five members of our group, Jerome Schröer, Lina Kenzler, David Fleck, Michelle Nowara, and Ilian Schröder (from left to right in the photo), attended the European Testis Workshop 2023 (ETW2023). This workshop brought together experts from the fields of reproductive biology and medicine to share their insights.

Four of our participants received funding from the Male Contraceptive Initiative (MCI) to cover their travel expenses. Lina Kenzler, Michelle Nowara, Jerome Schröer, and Ilian Schröder were the recipients of this grant, enabling their valuable contributions to the conference.

News from AChemS 2023

April 24, 2023

Lena Terlau, Friederike Seifert, Stefanie Kurth, Melissa Franke, and Marc Spehr attended the annual meeting of the Association for Chemoreception Sciences (AChemS) 2023, which took place in Bonita Springs, Florida. 

Lena received a travel grant from the European Chemoreception Research Organization (ECRO) that funded her participation. Moreover, at the meeting, Lena won the prestigious AChemS Award for Undergraduate Research for her poster presentation entitled “Insights into Adult Neurogenesis of Vomeronasal Sensory Neurons” Congratulations, Lena!!!

News from NWG Göttingen

März 25, 2023

Victoria Switacz, Hannah Tröger, Moritz Nesseler and Friederike Seifert travelled to Göttingen and participated at the 15th Göttingen meeting of the German Neuroscience Society. They all successfully presented great posters.
See you again in 2025, Göttingen!

Friederike returns from Pennsylvania

Oktober 17, 2022

Friederike came back from a 6-month research stay at Ma lab, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia. She learned to do in vivo virus-injections into the accessory olfactory bulb. These injections were used to chemogenetically inhibit Mitral cells during behavioural experiments.

News from ECRO 2022

September 10, 2022

Marc Spehr, Andres Hernandez-Clavijo, Hannah-Lena Tröger, Moritz Nesseler, Lena Terlau and Victoria Switacz participated in the annual meeting of the European Chemoreception Research Organization (ECRO) 2022—which took place in August in Berlin, Germany. An excellent opportunity to network and meet fellow scientists! See you again in Nijmegen, the Netherlands, for ECRO 2023!

News From ASA 2022

Juli 1, 2022

On the annual meeting of the American Society for Andrology (ASA) 2022—which took place in May in La Jolla, California, USA—Lina Kenzler presented her data and was awarded an ASA travel award as well as a travel grant from the Male Contraceptive Initiative (MCI).

New Publication: Ventral striatal islands of Calleja neurons control grooming in mice

November 30, 2021

Zhang Y, Vargas Cifuentes L, Wright K, Bhattarai J, Mohrhardt J, Fleck D, Janke E, Jiang C, Cranfill S, Goldstein N, chreck M, Moberly A, Yu Y, Arenkiel B, Betley J, Luo W, Stegmaier J, Wesson D, Spehr M, Fuccillo M, Ma M (2021) Ventral striatal islands of Calleja neurons control grooming in mice. Nature Neuroscience 24 (12). DOI: 10.1038/s41593-021-00952-z

Show abstract
The striatum comprises multiple subdivisions and neural circuits that differentially control motor output. The islands of Calleja (IC) contain clusters of densely packed granule cells situated in the ventral striatum, predominantly in the olfactory tubercle (OT). Characterized by expression of the D3 dopamine receptor, the IC are evolutionally conserved, but have undefined functions. Here, we show that optogenetic activation of OT D3 neurons robustly initiates self-grooming in mice while suppressing other ongoing behaviors. Conversely, optogenetic inhibition of these neurons halts ongoing grooming, and genetic ablation reduces spontaneous grooming. Furthermore, OT D3 neurons show increased activity before and during grooming and influence local striatal output via synaptic connections with neighboring OT neurons (primarily spiny projection neurons), whose firing rates display grooming-related modulation. Our study uncovers a new role of the ventral striatum’s IC in regulating motor output and has important implications for the neural control of grooming.

News from SSR 2021

November 19, 2021

On the annual meeting of the Society for the Study of Reproduction (SSR) 2021 which will take place in December in Saint-Louis, Missouri, USA, Lina Kenzler and Justine Fischoeder will present their respective data in posters as well as in virtual flash talks.

Lina Kenzler was awarded an SSR trainee-travel award. Justine won an SSR trainee-travel award as well and also received travel grants from the Male Contraceptive Initiative (MCI) and the Molecular Science & Engineering Profile Area.

New Publication: ATP activation of peritubular cells drives testicular sperm transport

Januar 29, 2021

David Fleck, Lina Kenzler, Nadine Mundt, Martin Strauch, Naofumi Uesaka, Robert Moosmann, Felicitas Bruentgens, Annika Missel, Artur Mayerhofer, Dorit Merhof, Jennifer Spehr, Marc Spehr (2021) ATP activation of peritubular cells drives testicular sperm transport. eLife 2021;10:e62885.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.62885
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Show abstract
Spermatogenesis, the complex process of male germ cell proliferation, differentiation, and maturation, is the basis of male fertility. In the seminiferous tubules of the testes, spermatozoa are constantly generated from spermatogonial stem cells through a stereotyped sequence of mitotic and meiotic divisions. The basic physiological principles, however, that control both maturation and luminal transport of the still immotile spermatozoa within the seminiferous tubules remain poorly, if at all, defined. Here, we show that coordinated contractions of smooth muscle-like testicular peritubular cells provide the propulsive force for luminal sperm transport toward the rete testis. Using a mouse model for in vivo imaging, we describe and quantify spontaneous tubular contractions and show a causal relationship between peritubular Ca2+ waves and peristaltic transport. Moreover, we identify P2 receptor-dependent purinergic signaling pathways as physiological triggers of tubular contractions both in vitro and in vivo. When challenged with extracellular ATP, transport of luminal content inside the seminiferous tubules displays stage-dependent directionality. We thus suggest that paracrine purinergic signaling coordinates peristaltic recurrent contractions of the mouse seminiferous tubules to propel immotile spermatozoa to the rete testis.