Cytochemical Aspects of 

 Spermatozoan Motility* 



LEONARD NELSON 



Department of Physiology, Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia 



The current symposium is concerned with the inherent motility 

 of sperm, in spite of recurrent reports that in this or that organism, 

 live and dead sperm may with equal facility be transported from the 

 site of deposition to the site of ovum activation in the female re- 

 productive tract. The reassuring conclusions of Noyes and co-workers 

 (1958), based on observations that neither semen nor radio-opaque 

 fluids move through the rabbit cervix during female orgasm, attest 

 to the fact that the motility of the sperm themselves is responsible 

 for their passage in this animal at least through the cervical barrier. 



This paper will concern itself with the problem of what may be 

 inferred concerning motility mechanisms from chemomorphological 

 considerations. Much information may be gleaned from studies of 

 ultrastructure in defining a common denominator among the or- 

 ganelles found in cilia and flagella. However, in light of the wide 

 diversity both of biochemical attributes and of gross and fine struc- 

 ture, generalization on the common character of ciliary and flagellar 

 action, on that of flagellates and spermatozoa, or even on that of 

 mammalian and invertebrate sperm may not yet be warranted. The 

 recent electron micrographs of Fawcett (this symposium), Cleland 

 and Rothschild (1959), Afzelius (1959), and of Gibbons and Grim- 

 stone (1960), among many others, merit the seal of approval as stand- 

 ards of elegance in depicting the flagellum in all its geometrical 

 beauty, revealing the fine structure to critical scrutiny. The flagellum 

 has been admirably and exhaustively described in other papers, but 



* This work has been supported by the Population Council, New York, dur- 

 ing the author's tenure of a Senior Research Fellowship of the United States 

 Public Health Service under Grant RG-6815 USPHS. 



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