The involvement of surface sugars of mammalian spermatozoa in epididymal maturation and in vitro sperm-zona recognition.

The distribution of various simple sugar residues over the spermatozoa surfaces of five different mammalian species is characterized and compared. Epididymal maturation of the spermatozoa of all the five species studied exhibited an increase in the amount of N-acetyl-D-glucosamine residues over their acrosomal domains. A complete blockade of sperm-zona pellucida attachment of hamster gametes could be brought about when spermatozoa were treated previously with 0.1 M of N-acetyl-D-glucosamine. This sugar seems to be specifically involved in sperm-zona pellucida attachment in hamsters. The inter-specific cross-reactivity of gametes of laboratory mammals like rat, mouse, rabbit and hamster could, quite likely, be because of the involvement of N-acetyl-D-glucosamine as a common factor in this reaction in these animals.