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Changes in exposed membrane proteins during in vitro capacitation of boar sperm
Author(s) -
Berger Trish
Publication year - 1990
Publication title -
molecular reproduction and development
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.745
H-Index - 105
eISSN - 1098-2795
pISSN - 1040-452X
DOI - 10.1002/mrd.1080270311
Subject(s) - capacitation , sperm , biology , acrosome reaction , boar , hamster , acrosome , andrology , incubation , membrane protein , membrane , biochemistry , microbiology and biotechnology , genetics , medicine
Exposed plasma membrane proteins were labeled with 125 I before and after incubation of boar sperm under capacitating conditions. Labeled protein profiles were compared to the ability of the sperm to penetrate zona‐free hamster ova. Quantitatively, the labeled sperm membrane proteins were primarily low M r prior to capacitation. The majority of the labeled seminal plasma protein was also low M r . After capacitation, two new proteins (64,000 M r and 78,000 M r ) were labeled. Sperm did not exhibit these exposed membrane proteins when incubated under noncapacitating conditions. Appearance of these proteins was not correlated to the percentage of acrosome‐reacted sperm. Although the 64,000 M r protein was not consistently observed, the relative labeling of the 78,000 M r protein was highly correlated with the ability of sperm to fuse with zonafree hamster ova. The 78,000 M r protein may be a sperm protein involved in fusion with the egg plasma membrane.