Researchers are one step closer to unraveling the extraordinarily complex series of processes that lead to an event crucial to human reproduction: the creation of sperm. A new study published in the journal Genes and Development fills in details of how an enzyme, RNA helicase MOV10L1, through interactions with a network of nearly two dozen other genes, protects the integrity of the germ line by giving rise to a class of RNA molecules that are essential to sperm development. RNA helicase MOV10L1 is likely the source of mutations that cause some cases of male infertility and could one day serve as a target for a form of reversible male contraception. The work was jointly led by P. Jeremy Wang, Professor of Developmental Biology in the School of Veterinary Medicine, and Zissimos Mourelatos, MD, PhD, Professor of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine. 
Read more in the Penn Communications news release.