Conventional semen analysis solely is not completely adequate to predict pregnancy outcomes. Therefore, advanced sperm function tests have been developed and introduced to clinical practice. These tests use different methods and techniques to evaluate different stages of fertilization steps. In this review, we reported some commonly used sperm function tests: sperm penetration assay, sperm-zona...

The response of normal human peripheral blood lymphocytes to a hypotonic environment may be divided into two phases: the cells first exhibit rapid osmotic swelling, followed by a slower shrinking phase, during which they regain their initial physiologic volume. This osmotic behavior is characteristic of most mammalian and avian nucleated cells so far examined. The normal human blood lymphocyte,...

1. A method is described for measuring the swelling pressure of solid gelatin. 2. It was found that this pressure increases rapidly between 15 degrees and 37 degrees C., and that the percentage change is nearly independent of the concentration of gelatin. 3. It is suggested that this pressure is due to the osmotic pressure of a soluble constituent of the gelatin held in the network of insoluble...

Mitochondrial volume homeostasis is a housekeeping cellular function essential for maintaining the structural integrity of the organelle. Changes in mitochondrial volume have been associated with a wide range of important biological functions and pathologies. Mitochondrial matrix volume is controlled by osmotic balance between cytosol and mitochondria. Any dysbalance in the fluxes of the main i...

In early work done more than ten years ago in this laboratory, observations were made which indicated a role for osmotic swelling in chemically induced cell fusion (Ahkong et al., 1973~). At that time it was suggested that: “As we have never observed fusion between the ovalappearing, unswollen erythrocytes, and as every chemical found to induce cell fusion in this laboratory also causes cells t...

Polyelectrolyte hydrogel is a ternary mixture of water, polymer network and mobile ions. The present paper examined two popular models describing the swelling and deformation behaviors of polyelectrolyte hydrogels, i.e. the multiphasic model and the transport model. The water flow, the network deformation and the ionic diffusion are coupled in the multiphasic model, and the gradient of the flui...

Stretch- and swelling-activated cation (SSAC) channels play essential roles not only in sensing and transducing external mechanical stresses but also in regulating cell volume in living cells. However, the molecular nature of the SSAC channel has not been clarified. In human epithelial HeLa cells, single-channel recordings in cell-attached and inside-out patches revealed expression of a Mg(2+)-...

The kinetics of the fusion process of unsealed and resealed erythrocyte ghosts with influenza virus (A/PR8/34, A/Chile 1/83) were measured under hypotonic, isotonic and hypertonic conditions using a recently developed fluorescence assay (Hoekstra et al. (1984) Biochemistry 23:5675-5681]. No correlation between the external osmotic pressure and kinetics and extent of fusion was observed. Influen...

Arachidonic acid or its metabolites have been implicated in the regulatory volume decrease (RVD) response after hypotonic cell swelling in some mammalian cells. The present study investigated the role of arachidonic acid (AA) during RVD in the human neuroblastoma cell line CHP-100. During the first nine minutes of hypo-osmotic exposure the rate of 3H-arachidonic acid (3H-AA) release increased t...