BACKGROUND Protein tyrosine phosphorylation (TP) of human sperm is related to sperm capacitation and zona pellucida (ZP) binding. The aim of this study was to determine whether the TP of capacitated sperm is a useful marker for the ability of sperm to bind to the ZP and undergo the ZP-induced acrosome reaction (AR). METHODS Semen samples were obtained from 115 subfertile men with sperm count ...

The interaction of sperm with the egg's extracellular matrix, the zona pellucida (ZP) is the first step of the union between male and female gametes. The molecular mechanisms of this process have been studied for the past six decades with the results obtained being both interesting and confusing. In this article, we describe our recent work, which attempts to address two lines of questions from...

Zinc pyrithione (ZP) is commonly used to prevent dandruff and seborrheic dermatitis. Many consumers are exposed daily to high doses of ZP, causing serious concerns about its toxicity. The reproductive and developmental toxicities were previously reported in pregnant rats. However, the estrogenic activity of ZP at varying degrees of exposure has been rarely studied. Thus, we performed an uterotr...

The zona pellucida (ZP) is a specialized extracellular matrix surrounding the developing oocyte. This thick matrix consists of various types of glycoprotein that play different roles in the fertilization process. Nowadays, several techniques are available for assessing ZP's mechanical response. The basic assumption behind these methods is that the ZP behaves like an elastic body: hence, dissipa...

BACKGROUND Although irregularities in human zona pellucida (ZP) morphology are well described, there is scant literature on the clinical significance of ZP dysmorphology. We, therefore, designed a retrospective cohort trial of ZP dysmorphology to assess the clinical significance of ZP dysmorphology and its affect on IVF outcome. Over the same time period a random sample of 77 cycles of 77 subje...

The zona pellucida (ZP) surrounding the oocyte is an extracellular fibrillar matrix that plays critical roles during fertilization including species-specific gamete recognition and protection from polyspermy. The mouse ZP is composed of three proteins, ZP1, ZP2, and ZP3, all of which have a ZP polymerization domain that directs protein fibril formation and assembly into the three-dimensional ZP...

Interaction between gametes during fertilization is at least in part regulated by carbohydrate moieties of the zona pellucida (ZP) and carbohydrate binding proteins of the sperm surface. This review focuses on the protein-carbohydrate interactions during the primary binding of the sperm to the ZP in different species. Synthesis, structure and composition of the ZP are summarized. The functional...

Let p be a fixed odd prime number. Throughout this paper Zp,Qp, and Cp will denote the ring of p-adic rational integers, the field of p-adic rational numbers, and the completion of the algebraic closure of Qp. Let N be the set of natural numbers and Z N ∪ {0}. The p-adic norm on Cp is normalized so that |p|p p−1. Let C Zp be the space of continuous functions on Zp. For f ∈ C Zp , the fermionic ...