| This paper investigated with histological, histochemical, cytological, biochemical and co- culture technologies to study the formation of spermatophore, the metabolism of sperm, the structure and the function of androgenic gland in redclaw crayfish, Cherax quadricarinatus von Martens Decapoda: Parastacidae, for resolving the problems in the aquaculture. The results show that:1. Animals were collected from artificial ponds at institution of freshwater research of Zhejiang province, China. The samples were observed under microscope after sacrificed, and investigated with histological, histochemical, biochemical methods and chromatography. The vas deferens of C. quadricarinatus consists of anterior vas deferens, middle vas deferens, and posterior vas deferens. The inner epithelial cell of the coiling anterior vas deferens secreted the weakly acidophily filament that formed the primary layer of spermatophore. Neutral muopolysaccharides and protein, which has 116kDa polypeptides, were the main components. There is three to four of incrassate epithelial cells of middle vas deferens were fasciculate high cellula columnoepithelialis. In the middle of epithelial cells appeared some secretory vacuoles with acidophily vesicular secretion that formed the in equable secondary layer. Acidic muopolysaccharides and protein, which has 63.8kDa polypeptides, were the main components. At the end of the middle vas deferens, appeared a new tube with a little of basophilic filamentary secretion. Spermatophores are complete in posterior vas deferens with which simpler structure than the former two, with incrassate muscular layer and lager tube, with which linked ejaculatory duct. Between the posterior vas deferens and the linked ejaculatory duct, there is a bottleneck with two valves inside. No any spermatophore in the ejaculatory duct with incrassate muscular layer. The C. quadricarinatus spermatophore is tubular, and comprised of a highly convoluted tube with a firm membrane forming a cord-like mass and impregnating gelatinous matrix. During mating, the segmentation of the continuous sperm sheath leading to stalked spermatophore results from specialized muscular activity.The spermatophore of the crayfish C. quadricarinatus consists of two main parts: a sperm mass composed of sperm embedded in a dense fibrillar matrix and an acellular wall which surrounds the sperm mass and is formed from the secretions of produced inthe vas deferens. In this study, the structure of the spermatophore walls of soft spermatophore in the vas degerens was investigated using electron microscopy and biochemical test. The wall of the spermatophore is composed of two concentric layers: a thin primary spermatophore layer which is fibrillar in structure with directly surrounds the sperm mass, a thick secondary layer from a dense vesicle secretion. All of the vas deferens keeps secreting to form the spermatophore.2. The sperms of the Crustacea are often atypical, bizarre, and non-flagellated, so it is difficult to investigate the sperm metabolism directly. Biochemical studies, as well as enzyme assays for lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) activity, succinate dehydrogenase (SDH) activity and fumarate reductase (FR) activity, have been conducted on the male reproductive tissue in order to provide reference to sperm metabolism in the male crayfish. C. quadricarinatus. The results reveal that spermatophores (with sperm inside) contain high levels of carbohydrate and protein, (18.264±0.081 and 12.846±2.179 mg/g of wet tissue weight, respectively), but low level of total lipid. (1.613±0.026) mg/g of wet tissue weight. Compared with other reproductive tissues, the corresponding contents in sperm (with the primer layer of spermatophore) are fairly low; the content of total lipid in which is too low to be detected; in contrast, there still is a high level of carbohydrate and protein. (5.227±0.054 and 8.475±0.943 mg/g of wet tissue weight, respectively), all significantly lower than in spermatophore. Enzyme assays show that the lactate dehydrogenase activity is high in testis, va... |
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