¹Shanghai Institute of Cell Biology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai 200031

Correspondence: Yuan Chang YAN, E-mail: ycyan@sunm.shcnc.ac.cn

Received 30 December 1999; Revised 27 January 2000; Accepted 15 February 1999.

Abstract

Some recent studies indicated that GABAergic system is involved in mammalian sperm acrosome reaction (AR), but direct evidence pertaining to the expression of gat1 in mammalian sperm is not yet demonstrated. In this study, we evaluated the presence of 67kDa GAT1 protein and mRNA in rat testis by Western blotting and reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction. Meanwhile, immunohistochemical and immunofluorescent analyses also identified GAT1 protein on the elongated spermatid and sperm. These results indicated that rat testis is a novel site of gat1 expression. Further studies should be taken to explore the role of GAT1 protein on sperm acrosome reaction.