Medicine and Health Sciences Commons^™

Choline Acetyltransferase And Carnitine Acetyltransferase Activity In Human Spermatozoa During Capacitation, Lisa A. Eccles

Theses and Dissertations in Biomedical Sciences

The regional distribution of ChAT activity in human spermatozoa is altered during in vitro capacitation and it correlates with the fertilizing potential of sperm.

Regional immunoreactivity in human spermatozoa as assessed by fluorescent immunocytochemistry was compared with ChAT and CaAT activity determined by enzymatic methodologies. Increasing proportions of sperm exhibited ChAT immunoreactivity along the equatorial region with a concomitant decrease in ChAT reactivity in the midpiece. Also, competitive studies with unlabeled ChAT blocked the equatorial region labeling; the unlabeled CaAT blocked staining along the midpiece region of the tail, suggesting some cross-reactivity of the ChAT antiserum with the CaAT enzyme. …

Two-Dimensional Electrophoretic Studies Of Normal Spematozoal Proteins, Ying Lin

Chemistry & Biochemistry Theses & Dissertations

Protein profiles of human spermatozoa have been mapped by using high resolution two-dimensional electrophoresis which combines isoelectric focusing as the first dimension and polyacrylamide gradient gels electrophoresis in SDS as the second dimension. The profiles of normal spermatozoa! extraction, acrosomal extraction and seminal plasma showed high resolution in its separation capability. No qualitative or quantitative differences were observed by using Coomassie Brilliant Blue R-250 staining in a much higher concentration of proteins. However, coomassie blue lacks the sensitivity to detect many minor components. Therefore, a silver staining procedure was used, which resulted in greatly increased sensitivity.

Samples from normal fertile …

High Resolution Two Dimensional Electrophoresis Of Soluble Proteins In Human Spermatozoa, Hsing-Ying Liu

Chemistry & Biochemistry Theses & Dissertations

The evaluation of human semen is very important for diagnosis of male infertility. Combined with the analysis of seminal plasma, a comprehensive biochemical screening of human spermatozoan proteins may be of assistance in providing qualitative and quantitative information to the physician to assist with evaluation.

In this study, human spermatozoa were ruptured by sonication. The soluble spermatozoan proteins were separated from the cellular debris by centrifugation and then analyzed in dissociated forms by two dimensional electrophoresis. The separated proteins were visualized by a silver stain method.

It has been shown that these combined techniques can resolve- four to five hundred …