Related Experiment Video
Updated: Aug 22, 2026
Evaluation of Intracellular Location of Reactive Oxygen Species in Solea Senegalensis Spermatozoa
Published on: March 11, 2018
[Study of zinc in protecting sperm from sodium nitroprusside damage]
Maigui Yang1, Yang Yang, Zhuying Zhang
1Department of Clinical Laboratory, Xijing Hospital, Xián, Shaanxi 710033, China.
Objective:
To study the function of zinc in preventing human sperm from being damaged by sodium nitroprusside (SNP), an external NO donor.
Methods:
Analyses were made of the function of zinc in protecting sperm from being influenced by SNP in such aspects as sperm motility, head-tail connection and the breakage of sperm DNA chain by using phase-contrast microscope and single cell gel electrophoresis (SCGE).
Results:
Sperm motility was obviously inhibited by SNP. The percentage of comet cells increased significantly but the stability of sperm head-tail connection decreased. Zinc could promote sperm motility, protect the DNA chain and prevent the sperm head-tail connection from breaking.
Conclusion:
Zinc can protect sperm from being damaged by NO. Its mechanism may be related to the mercaptol group of sperm chromatin.
Related Concept Videos
01:41Spermatogenesis
01:11Testing a Claim about Mean: Known Population SD
Estimating a population mean requires the samples to be distributed normally. The data should be collected from the randomly selected samples having no sampling bias. The sample size needed to be higher than 30, and most importantly, the population standard deviation should be already known.
In most realistic situations, the population standard deviation is often unknown, but in rare circumstances, when it...
01:22Sperm Structure and Semen Composition