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  • Title: Addition of androgens to cultured hamster epididymis increases zona recognition by immature spermatozoa.
    Author: Cuasnicú PS, González Echeverría F, Piazza A, Blaquier JA.
    Journal: J Reprod Fertil; 1984 Mar; 70(2):541-7. PubMed ID: 6230444.
    Abstract:
    The ability of spermatozoa recovered from the successive segments of the hamster epididymis to bind to the zona pellucida was studied and a major increase was found as spermatozoa passed from the proximal to the distal portion of the corpus epididymidis (1.95 compared with 20 spermatozoa bound/egg). Tubules from the proximal epididymis were cultured in conditions which preserved the motility of the contained spermatozoa for 48-72 h. Addition of 2 microM-5 alpha-DHT to the culture medium for 17 h stimulated the incorporation of 3H-labelled amino acids into several protein bands whose mobility in polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis was coincident with those of glycoproteins EP1-EP6, previously identified as androgen-dependent in the hamster epididymis in vivo. Examination of the material extracted from washed spermatozoa with 0.5 M-NaCl revealed the presence of radioactive proteins on spermatozoa. The zona-binding ability of spermatozoa from androgen-treated cultured proximal corpus tubules was significantly increased (P less than 0.001) as was the no. of spermatozoa/egg (5.51) compared with the value for control cultures (0.87 spermatozoa/egg). We suggest that androgen-dependent epididymal secretory proteins that associate with spermatozoa might participate in the formation or activation of a site for zona pellucida recognition in the sperm surface.
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