2-STEP ACQUISITION OF MOTILITY BY INSECT SPERMATOZOA

High motility of eupyrene sperm of a grasshopper (Omocestus ventralis) was induced by cAMP. Both trypsin and cAMP were necessary for high mo tility of eupyrene sperm of three other species of grasshoppers. The s ame was found for apyrene sperm of the silkmoth, Bombyx mori, when the y had been washed free from seminal plasma. On the other hand, in locu sts (Locusta migratoria), in which the yellow gland has high Arg-C end opeptidase activity, sperm motility was induced by trypsin, like that of apyrene sperm of Lepidoptera. Thus in these two orders of Insecta, sperm motility appears to be induced by the same two-step process: the first step by Arg-C endopeptidase, and the second by cAMP.