Distribution of Radioactive Metabolites Between Bovine Spermatozoa and the Incubation Medium

Abstract

Washed bovine spermatozoa were incubated with glutamate-U-C14, succinate-l,4-C14, glucose-U-C*4, and acetate-2-Cl4, and the distribution of radioactivity between sperm cells and incubation medium determined. Using density-gradient centrifugation through 11% lactpse-1% formalin, only 1 to 2% of the recovered radioactivity from glutamate or succinate was in the sperm cell fraction; with glucose this figure was about 7%, but with acetate, 75%. Thus with some substrates, a reduction in the interfering substances and consequent improvement in electrophoretic-chromatographic separation of metabolites can be obtained by removing the sperm and analyzing only the incubation medium.