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Carbohydrate‐based interactions of oviductal sperm reservoir formation—studies in the pig

Competitive inhibition of sperm to explants of the oviductal epithelium was used to study the complementary receptor system that may be involved in the establishment of the oviductal sperm reservoir in the pig. Sperm binding to the oviductal explants is expressed as Binding Index (BI = sperm cells/0.01 mm2). From a set of glycoproteins with known oligosaccharide structures, only asialofetuin and ovalbumin showed inhibitory activity, indicating that ovalbumin may block high affinity binding sites (IC50 ≅ 1.3 μM) and asialofetuin low affinity sites (IC50 ≅ 18 μM) of the complementary receptor systems, whereas fetuin carrying terminal sialic acid has no effect. Ovalbumin glycopeptides were isolated by Con A affinity chromatography and reverse‐phase HPLC following tryptic digestion. Glycopeptides and enzymatically released glycans were analyzed by MS, and were shown to represent preferentially the two high mannose type glycans (Man)5(GlcNAc)2 and (Man)6(GlcNAc)2, and as a minor component the hybrid type glycan (Hex)4(GlcNAc)5. Glycopeptides (84% inhibition) and glycans (81% inhibition) significantly reduced sperm‐oviduct binding at a concentration of 3 μM, whereas the deglycosylated peptides showed no inhibitory activity. Mannopentaose (IC50 ≅ 0.8 μM) representing the oligomannose residue of the high mannose glycans of ovalbumin was as effective as ovalbumin. These data indicate that the carboyhdrate‐based mechanisms underlying the formation of the oviductal sperm reservoir in the pig is the result of the concerted action of at least the high‐affinity binding sites for oligomannose or nonreducing terminal mannose residues and low‐affinity binding of galactose. Mol. Reprod. Dev. 61: 249–257, 2002. © 2002 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.