title: Maturation-dependent goat epididymal sperm autoagglutination and its inhibition by a glycoprotein factor.
abstract: The maturing goat epididymal spermatozoa were isolated from different segments of epididymis and these cells dispersed in a modified Ringer's solution, were incubated at 37 degrees C for 60 min to evaluate their autoagglutination efficacy. Distal corpus-epididymal spermatozoa specifically showed high order of head-to-head autoagglutination property whereas all other sperm cells did not show any detectable aggregation. The goat epididymal plasma has been shown to possess an anti-agglutinin that markedly inhibits sperm agglutination phenomenon and also dissociates the cells from the sperm clusters. Epididymal plasma is the most potent source of the anti-agglutinin which is a heat-stable specific glycoprotein. Like the autoagglutination phenomenon, the initiation of sperm forward progression also starts in the distal-corpus epididymis. The temporal correlation of these two events suggests that sperm autoagglutination may be a prerequisite for the induction of flagellar motility during the epididymal maturity of male gametes.
authors.affiliation: Indian Institute of Chemical Biology, Calcutta.
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Banerjee
authors.forename: N
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Dey
authors.forename: G C
authors.initials: GC
authors.lastname: Majumder
mesh_terms: D000371:Agglutination; D000818:Animals; D004822:Epididymis / Q000502:physiology*; D006023:Glycoproteins / Q000302:isolation & purification / Q000502:physiology*; D006041:Goats; D008297:Male; D013081:Sperm Motility; D013094:Spermatozoa / Q000276:immunology / Q000502:physiology*
chemical_list: D006023:Glycoproteins