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Figure 3 | Reproductive Biology and Endocrinology

Figure 3

From: Reactive oxygen species in spermatozoa: methods for monitoring and significance for the origins of genetic disease and infertility

Figure 3

Errors during spermiogenesis can lead to the retention of excess residual cytoplasm by human spermatozoa. A) arrows point to cells possessing an irregular cytoplasmic mass in the neck region of the spermatozoon; significantly, human spermatozoa have lost the ability, possessed by most other mammalian species, to create a cytoplasmic droplet which is later discharged from the cell B) The amount of cytoplasm retained by human spermatozoa is highly correlated with the ability of leukocyte-free sperm suspensions to generate a chemiluminescence response to 12-myristate, 13-acetate phorbol ester (PMA), using luminol-peroxidase as the detection system.

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