Sperm capacitation is, after all, a prerequisite for both partial and complete acrosome reaction

Abstract

The acrosome reaction (AR) - an essential step in mammalian fertilization - can occur, according to the consensus, only in capacitated spermatozoa. In apparent contrast, recent reports have demonstrated that human spermatozoa incubated in vitro in an albumin-free medium and therefore believed to be non-capacitated, do undergo the AR. With the aim of determining unequivocally whether or not capacitation is required for the AR and whether albumin is essential for capacitation, we compared the potential to undergo partial and complete AR (induced by phorbol myristate ester or by the Ca2+ ionophore A23187) between human spermatozoa incubated in a capacitating medium, albumin-free medium, and non-capacitating medium. The results clearly demonstrate that capacitation is, after all, a prerequisite for both partial and complete AR. Albumin, on the other hand, is essential only for acquiring the capacity to undergo complete, not partial AR.