Lipid fatty acid and protein pattern of equine prostasome-like vesicles

Comp Biochem Physiol B Biochem Mol Biol. 2001 Apr;128(4):661-6. doi: 10.1016/s1096-4959(00)00351-1.

Abstract

The semen of several mammals contains vesicles of different composition and origin. We have recently reported on the presence of lipoprotein vesicles in stallion semen. To a certain extent, these resemble human prostasomes, but differ from them in amount and composition. These horse-semen prostasome-like vesicles may be important, not only in horse reproductive physiology, but also in view of stallion semen cryopreservation. In this paper, we have studied horse-semen prostasome-like vesicles and found that they possess less saturated fatty acid than human prostasomes. Moreover, their protein pattern (SDS-PAGE electrophoresis) shows that the 30-50-kDa fraction is less abundant in stallion vesicles. In addition, fluidity (measured as fluorescence anisotropy of diphenylhexatriene) is higher in horse prostasome-like vesicles than in human prostasomes, albeit being much lower than that of most membranes. These findings may be connected to some species-related differences in reproductive physiology: the vaginal milieu of the mare is not acidic and the deposition of semen is intrauterine in the horse but vaginal in humans.

Publication types

  • Comparative Study
  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Animals
  • Fatty Acids / analysis*
  • Horses / physiology*
  • Humans
  • Male
  • Membrane Fluidity
  • Phospholipids / analysis
  • Prostate / metabolism
  • Proteins / analysis*
  • Semen / chemistry*

Substances

  • Fatty Acids
  • Phospholipids
  • Proteins