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Cyclodextrin enhances spermicidal effects of magainin-2-amide
C Wojcik1, W Sawicki, P Marianowski
1Department of Histology and Embryology, Institute of Biostructure, Warsaw Medical Academy, Warsaw, Poland.
Abstract:
Magainins are antimicrobial peptides with known spermicidal activity. Their activity is inhibited by cholesterol present in eukaryotic cell membranes. Pretreatment of spermatozoa with methyl-beta-cyclodextrin, which extracts cholesterol from cell membranes and induces capacitation, sensitizes them to magainin-2-amide as shown by a decrease in human sperm motility determined by computer-assisted sperm analysis and a concomitant decrease in sperm viability, as measured by MitoTracker(R) Red CMXRos labeling. Magainin-2-amide affects mainly the fast progressive spermatozoa inducing them directly into an immotile state, without an increase in motile non-progressive and slow progressive spermatozoa. We conclude that methyl-beta-cyclodextrin highly potentiates the deleterious effect of magainin-2-amide on human spermatozoa. Most probably, this effect can be explained by cholesterol extraction from sperm cell membranes.