ENDOGENOUS ENERGY-PRODUCTION BY MATURE BOAR SPERMATOZOA

When incubated in the absence of exogenous substrates, washed boar spe rmatozoa maintained a high energy charge potential (ECP) for at feast 5 h. Addition of 3-chloro-1-hydroxypropanone, an inhibitor of trioseph osphate isomerase and glyceraldehyde 3-phosphate dehydrogenase, at any time caused the ECP to decline and fructose-1,6-bisphosphate, dihydro xyacetone phosphate and glycerol to accumulate. There appear to be two endogenous substrates that are degraded ultimately to produce the tri osephosphates which allow the cells to produce lactate for the mitocho ndrial synthesis of ATP. One substrate generates minor amounts of glyc erol 3-phosphate whereas the other substrate degrades to glycerol and may be di-glycerides, or tri-glycerides, or both.