The present study reports data on post-translational modifications in the glycosylation status during epididymal passage and significance in fertility of a 33 kDa glycoprotein of rhesus monkey (Macaca mulatta), designated as MEF3 (monkey epididymal fluid protein 3). MEF3 exhibited strong affinity for N-linked alpha-D-mannose groups and O-linked N-Ac-galactosamine linkages in epididymal fluids a...

Semen is the main vector for HIV-1 dissemination worldwide. It contains three major sources of infectious virus: free virions, infected leukocytes, and spermatozoa-associated virions. We focused on the interaction of HIV-1 with human spermatozoa and dendritic cells (DCs). We report that heparan sulfate is expressed in spermatozoa and plays an important role in the capture of HIV-1. Spermatozoa-...

BACKGROUND Although spermatozoa with normal morphology are assumed to have uniform fertilization ability, recent data show that even normal spermatozoa have considerable variation in their head shape which is associated with differences in fertilization ability. Appropriate quantitative indicators for good sperm morphology, however, remain unidentified. METHODS Therefore, in an effort to iden...

Therapeutic administration of calcium channel-blocking medications has been correlated with reduced mannose receptor expression and iatrogenic human male infertility. In this report, we investigate whether the pharmacological activity of dihydropyridines, which block calcium influx through voltage-dependent calcium channels, contributes to the production of an infertile state. An influx of extr...

evidence suggests that human sperm chromatin anomalies adversely affect reproductive outcomes and infertile men possess substantially amount of sperm with chromatin anomalies than fertile men. routine semen analysis evaluates parameters such as sperm motility and morphology, but does not examine the nuclear dna integrity of spermatozoa. it has been suggested that altered nuclear chromatin struc...

Two types of plasminogen activators (PA), tissue type (tPA) and urokinase type (uPA), were identified in the seminal plasma of both the human and the rhesus monkey. We studied the possible relationship between PA activities in the seminal plasma and the sperm counts and motility and demonstrated that: (i) PA activity in human seminal plasma from infertile patients was associated with immotile s...

BACKGROUND Fertilization starts with the binding of the spermatozoa to the zona pellucida (ZP) of the oocyte. Such binding is a carbohydrate-mediated event and consists of a series of tightly regulated events. Molecular interactions between spermatozoon and ZP in human are not well characterized due to limited availability of oocytes for research. Our current technology cannot generate recombin...

The enzymic properties of adenylyl cyclase in purified membrane vesicles from human and boar spermatozoa are described. Plasma membrane vesicles, which appear to be right-side-out, show a marked increase in activity in the presence of the detergent Triton X-100, manganous ion and alkaline pH. Electron-microscope cytochemical assays indicated the presence of adenylyl cyclase in boar and human sp...