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Sperm capacitation is, after all, a prerequisite for both partial and complete acrosome reaction
Author(s) -
Jaiswal Bijay S,
Cohen-Dayag Anat,
Tur-Kaspa Ilan,
Eisenbach Michael
Publication year - 1998
Publication title -
febs letters
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.593
H-Index - 257
eISSN - 1873-3468
pISSN - 0014-5793
DOI - 10.1016/s0014-5793(98)00455-4
Subject(s) - capacitation , acrosome reaction , ionophore , albumin , sperm , chemistry , in vitro , acrosome , andrology , biochemistry , human fertilization , microbiology and biotechnology , medicine , biology , anatomy , membrane
The acrosome reaction (AR) – an essential step in mammalian fertilization – can occur, according to the consensus, only in capacitated spermatozoa. In apparent contrast, recent reports have demonstrated that human spermatozoa incubated in vitro in an albumin‐free medium and therefore believed to be non‐capacitated, do undergo the AR. With the aim of determining unequivocally whether or not capacitation is required for the AR and whether albumin is essential for capacitation, we compared the potential to undergo partial and complete AR (induced by phorbol myristate ester or by the Ca 2+ ionophore A23187) between human spermatozoa incubated in a capacitating medium, albumin‐free medium, and non‐capacitating medium. The results clearly demonstrate that capacitation is, after all, a prerequisite for both partial and complete AR. Albumin, on the other hand, is essential only for acquiring the capacity to undergo complete, not partial AR.