Overstreet J W, Hembree W C
Fertil Steril. 1976 Jul;27(7):815-31.
In an in vitro assay human spermatozoa penetrated the zona pellucida of 38.8% of 773 human oocytes recovered from the ovaries of cadavers. Zona penetration was not observed until 8 hours had elapsed. Oocytes examined with the electron microscope were surrounded mainly by sperm with intact acrosomes, but contained sperm in the zona and perivitelline space which had lost the outer acrosomal membrane and acrosomal contents. Sperm entry into the ooplasm was never observed. Spermatozoa from 11 of 16 patients with suspected infertility penetrated the zona, although the penetration rate was lower than that with sperm from fertile donors (12.9% versus 46.4%). When oocytes were incubated with mixed suspensions containing equal numbers of motile sperm from donors and patients, the donor sperm (identified by a fluorescent label) penetrated 50.0% and the patient sperm only 12.7%. These data suggest that human sperm penetrate the zona pellucida of nonliving human oocytes and mature living ova in a similar manner. This method is a potential diagnostic and investigative tool which avoids the ethical and technical problems associated with human in vitro fertilization.
在一项体外试验中，人类精子穿透了从尸体卵巢中回收的773枚人类卵母细胞中38.8%的透明带。直到8小时后才观察到透明带穿透现象。用电镜检查的卵母细胞主要被顶体完整的精子包围，但在透明带和卵周间隙中含有已失去顶体外膜和顶体内容物的精子。从未观察到精子进入卵质。16例疑似不育患者中有11例的精子穿透了透明带，尽管其穿透率低于生育能力正常供者的精子（12.9%对46.4%）。当将卵母细胞与含有等量来自供者和患者的活动精子的混合悬液一起孵育时，供者精子（用荧光标记识别）的穿透率为50.0%，而患者精子仅为12.7%。这些数据表明，人类精子以相似的方式穿透无生命的人类卵母细胞和成熟的活卵的透明带。该方法是一种潜在的诊断和研究工具，可避免与人类体外受精相关的伦理和技术问题。
