Autoradiographic investigation of sperm transit through the male mouse genital tract after tritiated thymidine incorporation.

The transit of spermatozoa in the genital tract of the male mouse was investigated by quantitative light microscopic autoradiography after intraperitoneal injection of tritiated thymidine. Transit duration in the caput and the corpus of the epididymis was shown to be 3 days; the total duration of transit in the genital tract was 5 days. These findings indicate that the time required for the transit of spermatozoa in the epididymal caput and corpus was comparable to that calculated in other mammals studied. However, the duration of sperm storage in the epididymal cauda appeared to be shorter than that previously reported for rodents.