Proacrosin and acrosin determination during capacitation and acrosome reaction in rabbit spermatozoa

The proacrosin/acrosin system has been immunolocalized, by the silver enhanced immunogold technique on the acrosomal region of capacitated and perivitelline rabbit spermatozoa. The purpose of the present work was to investigate the kinetics of the activation of acrosin by determining the proportion of proacrosin and acrosin present in the acrosome of the rabbit spermatozoa during capacitation and the induction of the acrosome reaction by the calcium ionophore A23187. Rabbit spermatozoa selected by the percoll gradient technique were incubated for 0, 0.5 and 6 hours and then the acrosome reaction was induced at 0 and 6 hours with 1.9 microM of the calcium ionophore A23187. It was found that 95% of acrosin activity in rabbit spermatozoa at zero time corresponds to proacrosin and after capacitation and acrosome reaction, a diminution of the activity of proacrosin/acrosin system was found. However, proacrosin represents the large majority of the system activity. Western blot prepared with sperm extract obtained at the start of incubation showed the characteristic doublet band about 53-55 kDa that may correspond to proacrosin and alpha-acrosin. After six hours of incubation and with induction with the calcium ionophore A23187 the same doublet was seen in addition to a third band of 49 kDa that could correspond to a transition form between alpha-acrosin to beta-acrosin. In conclusion, rabbit proacrosin/acrosin system remains in the large proportion as proacrosin during capacitation and acrosome reaction.