Histone-mediated agglutination of epididymal spermatozoa and the occurrence of histone receptors on the rat sperm surface.
Exogenous calf thymus whole histones showed a high degree of specificity to cause agglutination of rat epididymal spermatozoa. Histones had markedly greater (approximately 5-fold) agglutination activity than did salmon protamine whereas a variety of proteins, including strongly basic ones such as herring protamine sulphate, ribonuclease, cytochrome C and lysozyme, had no detectable agglutination activity. Histones F-3 and F-2a had the greatest activity for cell agglutination. Polyamines (5 mM), sialic acid (5 mM) and basic or acidic amino acids (10 mM) had no effect on histone (approximately 8 microM)-mediated sperm agglutination. 32P-Labelled histones showed a high specificity for binding to intact spermatozoa. The binding was saturable at a histone concentration of approximately 0.3 mg/ml and nearly completely displaced at saturating concentrations of native histones. Only unlabelled protamines competed to a small extent for binding of 32P-labelled histones to spermatozoa. The data are consistent with the view that histones bind specifically to sperm surface receptor sites before agglutination of cells.[1]References
- Histone-mediated agglutination of epididymal spermatozoa and the occurrence of histone receptors on the rat sperm surface. Majumder, G.C. J. Reprod. Fertil. (1981) [Pubmed]
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