Non-vascular plants rely on sperm to cross the distance between male and female reproductive organs for fertilization and sexual reproduction to occur. The majority of non-vascular plants have separate sexes, and thus, this distance may be a few millimetres to many metres. Because sperm need water for transport, it has been assumed that sperm lifespans are short and that this type of sexual rep...

The fate of mosquito sperm in the female reproductive tract has been addressed sporadically and incompletely, resulting in significant gaps in our understanding of sperm-female interactions that ultimately lead to fertilization. As with other Diptera, mosquito sperm have a complex journey to their ultimate destination, the egg. After copulation, sperm spend a short time at the site of inseminat...

The Rockefeller University Press $30.00 J. Gen. Physiol. 2016 Vol. 148 No. 3 207–211 www.jgp.org/cgi/doi/10.1085/jgp.201611676 207 Key physiological functions of organisms, such as sensory transduction, regulation of heart rate, smooth muscle contraction, bile secretion, endocrine regulation, immune responses, and various pathophysiological conditions, including neuropathic pain, diabetes, kidn...

Successful fertilization requires gametes to complete several stages, beginning with maturation and transport along the male and female reproductive tracts and ending with the interaction between the sperm and the egg. This last step involves sperm-egg adhesion and membrane fusion. ADAMs (disintegrin and metalloprotease domain proteins) are a family of membrane-anchored glycoproteins that are t...

Vaginal ultrasonography of uterine peristalsis during the follicular phase of the menstrual cycle demonstrates an increasing frequency and intensity of subendometrial and myometrial peristaltic waves as the follicular phase progresses. During this time the numbers of contraction waves with a fundo-cervical direction decrease considerably in favour of waves of contraction with a cervico-fundal d...

Using a digital videomicroscopic analysis system in the bovine, we showed that the mechanisms of transport caused by ciliary beating are distinctly different in ampulla and isthmus of the oviduct. The average particle transport speed (PTS) in the oviduct (mean, 133 microm/sec) does not differ in the cycle (metestrus) and during pregnancy after implantation, but it is locally modulated at the si...

The increasing successful use of artificial insemination is facilitated by a greater knowledge of the biology of the sow during her estrous period. The realization of the importance of establishing an adequate sperm reservoir in the oviduct at an appropriate time relative to ovulation has led to advances in the management of artificial insemination. In particular, knowledge of when a sow is lik...

BACKGROUND Before ovulation, sperm-oviduct interaction mechanisms may act as checkpoint for the selection of fertilizing spermatozoa in mammals. Postovulatory mating does not allow the sperm to attach to the oviduct, and spermatozoa may only undergo some selection processes during the transport through the female reproductive tract and/or during the zona pellucida (ZP) binding/penetration. ME...