GLYCOGEN IN HUMAN TESTICULAR BIOPSY MATERIAL: PRELIMINARY REPORT

Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
THE study of intermediary carbohydrate metabolism is the pathway to increasing our knowledge of the metabolism of many other substances of fundamental biologic importance. It has been shown that sex hormones, among others, are able to influence such phenomena through the mobilization of some enzymatic systems. Biochemical and histochemical studies have demonstrated that human endocrine sterility is often associated with endometrial abnormalities of phosphorylase activity, and in the amount and distribution of alkaline phosphatase and glycogen (Zondek and Hestrin (1), Hughes (2), Atkinson and Engle (3), Arzac and Blanchet (4)). The intimate relationship between the physiology of human spermatozoa and carbohydrate metabolism has been well stressed by McLeod (5) and others. Wislocki (6) has recently found seasonal differences in the content of polysaccharides in the testes of deer. However, although some recent histochemical investigations have been made on the lipids of the human testis (Nelson and Heller (7)), so far as the author knows, the possible modifications of the amount and distribution of glycogen in this organ have not been investigated in abnormalities of the testes associated with sterility.