A.R.C. Unit of Reproductive Physiology and Biochemistry, University of Cambridge, U.K. The gelatin-film test for neutral proteinase activity (Gaddum & Blandau, 1970) has been applied to rodent spermatozoa in several laboratories (for details see Brown & Hartree, 1976). There is general agreement that activities are low in rat and mouse spermatozoa. More recently Erickson & Martin (1974) have concluded that the neutral proteinase in mouse spermatozoa is not acrosin. They used a sensitive trypsin assay based on the release of [3H]methanol from tosylarginine [3H]methyl ester and found that the very low hydrolytic activities in fractions from mouse spermatozoa were not decreased by inhibitors of acrosin. As far as we are aware this is the first report of failure to detect acrosin in mammalian spermatozoa. Since this finding is contrary to our experience we are giving evidence for the presence of acrosin in mouse spermatozoa. Fractionation of spermatozoa Epididymides
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Brown et al. (1976) studied this question.