Levin R M, Shofer J, Wein A J, Greenberg S H
Andrologia. 1981 Sep-Oct;13(5):468-72. doi: 10.1111/j.1439-0272.1981.tb00083.x.
The primary source of energy for sperm motility is intracellular adenosine 5'-triphosphate. We studied the relationship between the concentration of ATP and sperm motility in normal semen donors and in a series of male infertility patients. The ATP concentration was determined by the firefly luciferin-luciferase assay, and sperm motility was quantitated by the turbidimetric method. Although the patient population demonstrated a significantly lower sperm motility than the donor population, we found no significant difference between the two groups in the intracellular concentration of ATP. Thus, the data indicate that the poor sperm motility observed in some of the patients' specimens was not associated with abnormally low levels of ATP. In separate experiments the intracellular concentration of ATP decreased gradually with time at approximately the same rate at which sperm motility declined. Both factors had decreased by 50% approximately 3 hours after collection.
精子运动的主要能量来源是细胞内的5'-三磷酸腺苷（ATP）。我们研究了正常精液捐献者以及一系列男性不育患者中ATP浓度与精子运动之间的关系。ATP浓度通过萤火虫荧光素-荧光素酶测定法确定，精子运动通过比浊法进行定量。尽管患者群体的精子运动明显低于捐献者群体，但我们发现两组的细胞内ATP浓度没有显著差异。因此，数据表明，在一些患者样本中观察到的精子运动不佳与ATP水平异常降低无关。在单独的实验中，细胞内ATP浓度随时间逐渐下降，下降速率与精子运动下降速率大致相同。采集后约3小时，这两个因素均下降了约50%。
