Proacrosin/acrosin activity during spermiohistogenesis of the bull.

Acrosin and its zymogen form, proacrosin, were extracted from early and late spermatids, from ejaculated and epididymal spermatozoa (caput, corpus, and cauda) of the bull. Activity of proacrosin/acrosin and the time course of proacrosin activation were studied. It turned out that proacrosin/acrosin activity is first demonstrable in haploid spermatids, increases during spermiohistogenesis in the testis, and remains nearly constant in epididymal and ejaculated spermatozoa.