Reproduction Abstracts

Introduction: The female reproductive tract provides the optimal environment for gamete interaction and embryo development. Understanding the oviductal environment is important for reproducing the in vivo conditions in vitro. OVGP1 is the major non-serum oviductal protein with a variable protein activity depending on its regions. To investigate the potential role of the OVGP1 regions on its activity, full-length (prOVGP1, 527aa) and C-terminal truncated (prOV...

Introduction: Billions of sperm are deposited in female tract during porcine insemination but only a few thousands are able to reach the oviduct to facilitate fertilization. It has been reported that some of the sperm membrane proteins involved in fertilization are secreted by epididymis (i.e. SPAM-1, CRISP, and MFGE8). It was observed that the mouse oviduct is able to secrete some of these proteins. Some of them are implicated in fertilization since sperm fertility of KO mice...

Introduction: The sperm adhesion molecule 1 (SPAM1) is a glycoprotein present in the sperm membrane and it is involved in degradation of cumulus matrix and ZP binding. In the mouse, SPAM1 is secreted by the oviduct and the uterus and is acquired by the sperm during its transit through the genital tract. Our aim was to determine the presence of SPAM1 in the bovine oviduct.Materials and methods: Ovaries and oviducts were obtained from slaughterhouse cows a...