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Factors Influencing Metabolic Activity of Bull Spermatozoa. VI. Metabolic CO₂ and Fructose¹

Department of Dairy Science, University of Illinois, Urbana

ABSTRACT

Sixteen samples of semen and 17 samples of washed spermatozoa were used to study the effect of metabolically produced CO₂ and added fructose on the aerobic metabolism of bovine spermatozoa. The spermatozoa, in seminal plasma or saline suspensions, were diluted with saline and saline containing fructose and incubated at 37 C for 4 hr. Dixon-Keilin flasks were used which enabled the cells to respire in the presence of their own produced CO₂ and the CO₂ to be removed by KOH for determination of oxygen uptake at any desired time. This was routinely done at the end of 1, 2, 3, and 4 hr. The results showed that metabolic CO₂ significantly stimulated the O₂ consumed by sperm cells in the presence of seminal plasma, but not in its absence. Added fructose depressed O₂ uptake during the 4 hr when seminal plasma was present and also during the first hour with washed cells. However, after the first hour, when the washed cells have utilized all their endogenous substrates, fructose was necessary for continued metabolism.

¹ This research was supported in part by a grant from the Rockefeller Foundation.