Sperm, fish

Fish sperm are a product of the gonads of male fish and are often called milt or soft roe. Salted sperm from sea and freshwater fish, particularly herring, are most commonly marketed. 

Crustaceans have no backbone their body is divided into sections, each bearing a pair of joint-legs. An armor-Uke shell covers and protects the body. Included are shrimp, crayfish (also called crabfish), crabs (e.g. freshwater, edible green shore crab) and lobster. Compositional data are provided in Table 13.14. 

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The protamines are built up almost exclusively of diamino acids, salmine containing over 80 per cent, of arginine. Only small amounts of monoamino acids are present in them, and even these amounts may be due to impurity, for fish sperm only at maturity is made up of protamine and nucleic acid, whereas at other times histone takes the place of protamine, and histones contain less diamino acids. Kossel and Dakin s analysis appears to show us a quantitative result in the case of salmine. 

Salmine, sturine, etc., are simple proteins, probably the simplest of all, and are found in fish sperm, e.g., in salmon sperm (salmine) and in sturgeon sperm (sturine), etc. 

Heparin antagonism. Heparin effects wear off so rapidly that an antagonist is seldom required except after extracorporeal perfusion for heart surgery. Protamine, a protein obtained from fish sperm, reverses the anticoagulant action of heparin, when antagonism is needed. It is as strongly basic as heparin is acidic, which explains its immediate action. Protamine sulphate, 1 mg by slow i.v. injection, neutralises about 100 units of heparin derived from mucosa (mucous) or 80 units of heparin from lung ... 

In 1891, Kossel reported the first study of the hydrolysis of a protein-free nucleic acid. Mainly as a result of his work, it was recognized that there are two nucleic acids, similarly constituted but differing in certain components. The nucleic acid readily isolated from yeast is of one type that from thymus gland and fish sperm is of the other. It is possible that other nucleic acids exist in fact, there have been indications from time to time that there are other nucleic acids, but only the two types under discussion have been adequately characterized. 

Sources from which desoxyribosenucleic acid has been isolated include fish sperm, thymus, spleen, pancreas, testicles, placenta, mammary glands, brain, liver, kidney, blood cells, thyroid, intestines, lungs, lymphatic glands, bacteria, and tumor tissue. It is difficult to obtain a uniform product, free from protein the first serviceable method was that of Neumann, which has been improved upon by later workers. The nucleic acid from thym,us glands may be isolated in the following manner ... 

Kossel specialized in chemistry of tissues and cells (physiological chemistry), and by the 1870s, he had begun his investigations into the constitution of the cell nucleus. He isolated nucleoproteins from the heads of fish sperm cells in 1879. By the 1890s he had focused... 

Within an ecotoxicological perspective, mammalian methods cannot be extrapolated automatically to other species. Sperm of teleosts, for example, differs in a few very important aspects from that of mammals. Unlike mammalian sperm it is not motile on ejaculation and attains motility only on contact with water. After activation it only moves for a few minutes (for freshwater fish typically around 1 min). Furthermore it enters the egg via the micropyle rather than through an acrosomal reaction. The first minute after the start of motility is therefore crucial to its success in fertilizing an egg, and even when it is deposited on the egg s surface it still has to move fast enough in the right direction to reach the micropyle. Clearly the fertilizing ability of fish sperm is very dependent on its motility, and any pollutant that decreases this movement may be expected to affect fertilization. 

Successful reproduction is clearly essential for the propagation of every species, prerequisites for which are high quality and properly functioning gametes. Spermatozoa, however, are known to be very sensitive to environmental pollution, as shown in studies by Billard and Roubaud (1985), Khan and Weis (1987a,b), Anderson et al. (1991), Rurangwa (1999), and Van Look (2001). The motility of fish sperm can be affected by pollutants in several ways (1) by alteration of the... 

Inaba, K., Y. Akazome and M. Morisawa. Purification of proteasomes from salmonid fish sperm and their localization along sperm flagella. J. Cell Sci. 104 907-915, 1993. 

Bell M, Dick J, Buda C. Molecular sedation of fish sperm phospohlipids large amounts of dipolyunsaturated phosphatidylserine. Lipids 1997 32 1085-1091. 

In addition, many naturally occurring substances or phenomena can be mistaken for oil. These include weeds and sunken kelp beds, whale and fish sperm, biogenic... 

Deoxyribonucleic acid sodium salt from salmon testes (fsDNA) was purchased from Sigma (Product D1626). Solution of natural fish sperm DNA prepared in MilliQ water gives UV absorbance ratios of -1.8-1.9 at 260 and 280 nm M260/A,80), respectively, which indicates that DNA is sufficiently free of protein. Stock fsDNA is stored at 0-4°C and should be used within three days of preparation (see Notes 7-9). 

I. Pharmacology. Protamine is a cationic protein obtained from fish sperm that rapidly binds to and inactivates heparin. The onset of action after intravenous administration is nearly immediate (30-60 seconds) and lasts up to 2 hours. It also partially neutralizes low-molecular-weight heparins (LMWHs) and can act as an anticoagulant itself by inhibiting thromboplastin. 

L-Histidine (gr. histion, tissue) isolated by A. Kossel from acid-hydrolyzate of sturin (a fish sperm protamine), and at the same time by S.G. Hedin from hydrolyzates of other proteins. Structure established by synthesis F.L. Pyman, 1911. 

Fish sperm contain nucleoprotamines. Upon treatment with sulfuric acid, the nucleoprotamines are reduced to nucleic acid and protamine sulfate. The chemically heterogeneous protamines of molar mass 2000-8000 thus obtained contain only a few different kinds of amino acid residues per molecule. They are relatively rich in basic amino acids, as the composition of the protamines clupeine and salmine shows (Table 29-6), and never contain cystine, aspartic acid, or tryptophan. The basic amino acids are responsible for the bonding of the protein to the nucleic acid component. 

Du, Y. Z., Lu, P., Yuan, H., Zhou, J. P., Hu, F. Q. Quaternary complexes composed of plasmid DNA/protamine/fish sperm DNA/stearic acid grafted chitosan oligosaccharide micelles for gene dehveiy. Int. J. Biol. Macromol 2011 48(1) 153-159. 

BEIRAO J, CABRHA E, PEREZ-CEREZALES S, MARTINEZ-PARAMO S and HERRAEZ M P (2011) Effect of cryopreservation on fish sperm subpopnlations. Cryobiology, 62, 22-31. 

HAFFRAY p, LABBE c and MAissE G (2008) Fish Sperm cryopreservation in France from laboratory studies to application in selective breeding programs. Cybium, 32,... 

Li and coauthors [40] have immobilized a chitosan film doped with CNTs onto the graphite electrode and co-immobilized fish sperm DNA for the detection of salmon sperm. They employed MB as a redox-active indicator for the electrochemically quantitative... 

Kokumi compounds supposedly include calcium, protamines (found, for example, in fish sperm), histidine, glutathione and other peptides, such as y-glutamyl peptides or the peptides of mature Gouda cheese. Another example of a mouthfulness (kokumi) enhancing molecule is the bitter hydrophobic compound in thermally processed avocado fruits, (12Z,15Z)-l-acetoxy-2-hydroxy-4-oxoheneicosa-12,15-diene (see 8-225, later). 

Thy mo-nucleic acid, foimd in thymus, spleen, pancreas, liver, kidney, fish sperm, and other sources of animal chromatin. In this form of the acid the pyrimidines are cytosine and thjunine and the sugar is desoxyribose, which gives a positive Feulgen colour test (p. 349). 

Hypoxanthine, CgH4N40, has been obtained chiefly from nucleotides. It is present in extracts of glandular and muscle tissue, in fish sperm and bone marrow, and, in traces, in milk and urine. Urinary hypoxanthine is greatly increased in leukaemia. It occurs in microcrystals of low solubility in water and organic solvents, but dissolves in acids or alkalies to form salts. On oxidation, it is converted into xanthine. 

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