Sperm migration

Odeblad, E. Biophysical composition of cervical mucus and sperm migration during treatment with conluten and conlunett. Acta Obstertricia et Gynecologica Scandinavica 1968, 47 (suppl. 8), 7-19. 

Myles, D.G. and Primakoff, P. (1984), Localized surface antigens of guinea pig sperm migrate to new regions prior to fertilization. J. Cell. Biol. 99 1634-1641. 

These potent actions on the female reproductive smooth muscle suggest that seminal prostaglandins may have a function of importance in connection with fertility, for example by facilitating sperm migration and it has been observed that males from infertile marriages have a low mean seminal PGE... 

Sliwa, L. (1999). Hyaluronic acid and chemoattractant substance from follicular fluid in vitro effect of human sperm migration. Arch. Androl. 43, 73—76. 

Intrauterine device—A device inserted in the uterus to prevent pregnancy, either through spermicidal action (copper device) or thickening cervical mucus to inhibit sperm penetration and migration (progesterone device). 

Primakoff, P., Hyatt, H., and Myles, D.G. (1985). A role for the migrating sperm surface antigen PH-20 in guinea pig sperm binding to the egg zona pellucida. J. Cell Biol. 707 2239-2244. 

This approach involves determination of the extent to which spermatozoa can migrate through a membrane (e.g., a Nucleopore membrane with 5 xm pore size). This extent correlates primarily with the fraction of fast and straight-swimming cells in the sperm sample and with the sperm progressive velocity [68]. 

Harper, M.J.K. (1994). Gamete and gote transport, in The physiology of Reproduction (E. Knobil and J.D. NerU, eds.), pp. 123-187. Raven Press, New York. Hong, C.Y., Chao, H.T., Tsai, K.L. and Ng, H.T. (1991). Evaluation of human sperm motflity by means of transmembrane migration method and computer-assisted semen analysis—a comparison study. Andrologia 23, 7-10. 

More recent work from Gross laboratory claims that at least some maternal mRNA s code for microtubule proteins, or, more correctly, for soluble proteins which, after partial purification by vinblastine precipitation, co-migrate on acrylamide gel electrophoresis with known microtubule proteins from sperm tails (Raff et ah, 1971, 1972). Although there is a pool of these microtubule proteins in the unfertilized egg it seems that this pool is maintained or supplemented (for the construction of such things as mitotic spindles and cilia) by continuous synthesis of the monomeric subunits from stored mRNA, starting from the first cleavage cycle. Hopefully, more detailed analysis of the relative rate of microtubule synthesis at different times after fertilization, in the absence of new RNA synthesis, will provide information about the way in which this particular maternal mRNA is utilized during development. 

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