A Re-Examination of the Rôle of Phospholipids as Energy Substrates During Incubation of Ram Spermatozoa

Lardy & Phillips (1941a,b) postulated that the endogenous phospholipids are used as a source of oxidizable energy by bull spermatozoa in the absence of sugar. Their results were not confirmed by the later work of Bomstein & Steberl (1957) with bull spermatozoa, or by Poulos & White (1973) with human spermatozoa. Hartree & Mann (1959, 1961) examined the effect of aerobic and anaerobic incubation of washed ram spermatozoa on the utilization of endogenous phospholipids and their results, though different from those of Lardy & Phillips (1941a,b), supported the latter's original hypothesis. Scott & Dawson (1968) briefly examined the effect of incubation on the phospholipids of washed ram spermatozoa and did not detect the same degree of plasmalogen loss as did Hartree & Mann (1961). The latter authors also found that incubation resulted in the release