Ezrin Thr567 phosphorylation participates in mouse oocyte maturation, fertilization, and early embryonic development

Abstract

Abstract Background Ezrin is a membrane-cytoskeleton linker, involved in cell polarization, cell migration, cell division, signal transduction and some other cellular activities that play an important role in oocyte maturation, fertilization and early embryonic development. The phosphorylation of Thr567 is an important way to activate ezrin, it has been proved that p-ezrin Thr567 is expressed in oocytes and pre-implantation embryos in mouse. However, little is known about the impact of inhibiting ezrin Thr567 phosphorylation on oocyte maturation, fertilization and early embryonic development. Methods NSC668394 is a small molecule that specifically inhibits the phosphorylation of ezrin Thr567. Here, we investigated the effects of inhibiting ezrin Thr567 phosphorylation with NSC668394 on the mouse oocyte maturation, fertilization, and early embryo development. Conclusion The results show that adding NSC668394 to the in vitro culture medium significantly lowed mouse embryos development competence after 8-cell stage (P < 0.05). Further experiments revealed that inhibiting ezrin Thr567 phosphorylation during in vitro maturation or in vitro fertilization not only decreased the maturation rate and fertilization rate of mouse oocytes, but also reduced early embryos development competence after 8-cell stage. Microinjection of mRNA encoding ezrin T567D mutant partially rescued the developmental defects of mouse oocytes, fertilization, and early embryonic development caused by NSC668394. These results indicate that ezrin Thr567 phosphorylation plays an important role in mouse oocyte maturation, fertilization and early embryo development.