Ion channels have been assigned a pivotal importance in various sperm functions and are therefore promising targets for contraceptive development. The lack of data on channel functionality and pharmacology has hampered this goal. This is a consequence of technical problems of applying electrophysiological techniques to spermatozoa due to their small size and form. By using a laminin coating to increase adherence of spermatozoa and nystatin in the patch pipette for pore formation, we have adapted the whole-cell recording technique to study currents in mature uncapacitated bovine spermatozoa. Employing these conditions, in the head region, patched spermatozoa could be transferred into the whole-cell configuration. For the first time we document an outward rectifying current in mature bovine spermatozoa was blocked by tetraethyl ammonium (TEA) chloride. The observation of a shift in the reversal potential as a response to changes in the extracellular concentration of K(+) ions allowed us to identify this current as K(+) selective. This result shows that K(+) channels in the head region of mature uncapacitated bovine spermatozoa can be suitably investigated using the whole-cell recording patch-clamp technique.

中文翻译：

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成熟牛精子中的钾电流。

离子通道在各种精子功能中被赋予了至关重要的作用，因此是避孕发展的有希望的目标。缺乏有关通道功能和药理学的数据阻碍了这一目标。这是由于电生理技术的尺寸和形状小而将其应用于精子的技术问题的结果。通过使用层粘连蛋白涂层来增加贴片移液器中的精子和制霉菌素的粘附以形成孔，我们采用了全细胞记录技术来研究成熟的无能力牛精子中的电流。利用这些条件，在头部区域，可以将修补的精子转移到全细胞结构中。我们首次记录了成熟的牛精子中的向外整流电流被四乙基氯化铵（TEA）阻滞。观察到作为对细胞外K（+）离子浓度变化的响应而产生的逆转电位变化，使我们能够将这种电流鉴定为对K（+）具有选择性。该结果表明，可以使用全细胞记录膜片钳技术适当地研究成熟的无能力牛精子头部的K（+）通道。