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Characteristics of selected proteins associated with vesicles secreted by the male genital tract of different mammalian species

Protein	Origin and Species	Function	Observations	Reference

Epididymosomes:
P34H	Epididymis of humans, hamsters, and bulls, respectively	Zona pellucida recognition and binding	P26h and P25b present on epididymosomes; transferred to spz*	Sullivan, 1999
P26h
P25b
GPX5	Mouse epididymis	Glutathion peroxidase	Associated with epididymosomes and transferred to spz	Rejraji et al, 2002
Macrophage migration inhibitory factor	Rat epididymis	T-cell cytokine but unknown function here	Associated with epididymosomes, no signal peptide	Eickhoff et al, 2001
Ubiquitin	Bovine epididymal vesicles	Elimination of defective spz	Secreted and transferred to spz	Fraile et al, 1996; Sutovsky et al, 2001
Prostasomes:
CD55	Prostasomes from human ejaculated semen	Complement inhibition	CD59 and CD46 transferred to spz in vitro	Rooney et al, 1993, 1996
CD59
CD46
HE5 (CD52)	Human and monkey prostasomes	Unknown function here	Acquired by spz during epididymal transit	Rooney et al, 1996; Yeung et al, 1997
Other vesicles:
Transglutaminase, carbonic anhydrase II	Rat coagulating gland	Coagulatory plug, pH adjustment	No signal peptide, apocrine secretion, androgen dependence, interaction with spz after ejaculation	Aumuller et al, 1999
Mouse vas deferens protein	Mouse vas deferens	Aldose reductase but unknown function here	Associated with vesicles in the vas deferens and transferred to spz, no signal peptide	Manin et al, 1995

*spz indicates spermatozoa.