File:Pig sperm capacitation 02.jpg

Capacitation alters the ultrastructure of the apical head and the acrosome of boar sperm

(A): Control non-capacitated boar sperm with a plasma membrane that is not tightly associated to the outer acrosomal membrane. The loose plasma membrane at the entire sperm head is due to processing of the specimen for TEM.

(B): Higher magnification of the apical tip of the control non-capacitated sperm head.

(C): The apical tip of a capacitated sperm head showing tight association of the plasma membrane with the outer acrosomal membrane whereas at a more distal area the two membranes do display a loose apposition (similar to control sperm).

(D): Higher magnification of the apical tip of the capacitated sperm head. Arrow heads indicate the apical area of the sperm head.

Bar represents 50 nm.

Journal-1.pone.0011204.g001.jpg

Reference

<pubmed>20585455</pubmed>| PLoS One.

Tsai P-S, Garcia-Gil N, van Haeften T, Gadella BM (2010) How Pig Sperm Prepares to Fertilize: Stable Acrosome Docking to the Plasma Membrane. PLoS ONE 5(6): e11204.

© 2010 Tsai et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.