Adenosine Triphosphatase and 

 Acetylcholinesterase in 

 Relation to Sperm Motility 



J. TIBBS 



Department of Biochemistry, The University of St. Andrews, Queen's College, Dundee, Scotland 



Much time and thought has been devoted to studies on striated 

 muscle cells. Although there is no general agreement as to the mecha- 

 nism of action of these cells, certain features must certainly have a 

 place in this mechanism. Nature may well have used some of these 

 ideas in her design for sperm motility, and thus one approach to this 

 problem is to search for evidence of such common features. 



Structurally, striated muscle has been revealed in considerable de- 

 tail by the work of Huxley (1957), who has also taken a part in pre- 

 senting us with stimulating information regarding the localization of 

 particular proteins (Huxley and Hanson, 1957). The fine structure 

 of the sperm tail has been discussed authoritatively during this sym- 

 posium. Comparisons of biophysical features in muscle and sperm 

 tails do not, in fact, seem to be particularly fruitful. This is hardly 

 surprising since even a common biochemical mechanism, were such 

 to exist, would have to be arranged very differently in each case to 

 produce the two vastly different types of motion shown by the mus- 

 cle cell and the sperm tail. This paper will be concerned with some 

 of those biochemical features which are the ones most likely to be 

 included in any common basic mechanism. 



ADENOSINE TRIPHOSPHATASE ACTIVITY OF THE SPERM TAIL 



During the movement of a muscle cell two phases of activity may 

 readily be distinguished. The first is an active phase in which the cell 

 and the component myofibrils contract. At the same time enzymic 

 hydrolysis of adenosine triphosphate (ATP) takes place. The second 



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