Injection of human sperm tails containing the basal body into human oocytes followed by parthenogenetic activation, showed that the centrosome contributes to the robustness of the early cell divisions, increasing the probability of parthenotes reaching the compaction stage. Using proteomics and immunofluorescence studies we show here that the human zygote inherits a basal body enriched with centrosomal proteins from the sperm, establishing the first functional centrosome of the new organism. The mechanism of conversion of the human sperm basal body to a centrosome after fertilization, and its role in supporting human early embryogenesis, has not been directly addressed so far.
