p-Aminobenzamidine-sensitive acrosomal protease(s) other than acrosin serve the sperm penetration of the egg zona pellucida in mouse

It has been reported that a significant delay in protein dispersal from the acrosomal matrix is observed in wild-type sperm by adding p-aminobenzamidine, a trypsin/acrosin inhibitor, to the incubation medium. The pattern of this delayed release was similar to that of the acrosin-deficient mutant mou...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Zygote (Cambridge) 1998-11, Vol.6 (4), p.311-319
Main Authors: Yamagata, Kazuo, Murayama, Keitaro, Kohno, Nobuhisa, Kashiwabara, Shin-ichi, Baba, Tadashi
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Acrosin
Acrosin - physiology
Acrosome - enzymology
Animals
Benzamidines - pharmacology
Egg
Endopeptidases - chemistry
Endopeptidases - physiology
Female
In Vitro Techniques
Isoflurophate - pharmacology
Male
Mice
Mice, Inbred ICR
Molecular Weight
Mouse
Protease Inhibitors - pharmacology
Sperm
Sperm-Ovum Interactions - physiology
Tosyllysine Chloromethyl Ketone - pharmacology
Zona pellucida
Zona Pellucida - physiology
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Summary:It has been reported that a significant delay in protein dispersal from the acrosomal matrix is observed in wild-type sperm by adding p-aminobenzamidine, a trypsin/acrosin inhibitor, to the incubation medium. The pattern of this delayed release was similar to that of the acrosin-deficient mutant mouse sperm (Yamagata et al., J. Biol. Chem., 273, 10470–4, 1998). In the present study, no further delay in protein dispersal was found when the acrosin-deficient sperm were treated with p-aminobenzamidine, indicating that among the p-aminobenzamidine-sensitive protease(s) only acrosin may function to accelerate this process. Although the acrosin-deficient sperm penetrated the zona pellucida (Baba et al., J. Biol. Chem., 269, 31845–9, 1994), the addition of p-aminobenzamidine to the fertilisation medium caused a significant inhibition of fertilisation in vitro. This indicates that there is a p-aminobenzamidine-sensitive protease(s) other than acrosin participating in the zona penetration step. Indeed, we demonstrated that a non-acrosin protease with a size of 42 kDa was present in the supernatant of the acrosome-reacted sperm suspension. The enzyme was inhibited by p-amimobenzamidine, diisopropyl fluorophosphate and Nα-tosyl-L-lysine chloromethyl ketone, and was apparently activated by acrosin.
ISSN:0967-1994
1469-8730
DOI:10.1017/S0967199498000264