Epididymal protein markers and fertility.

The last stages of male gamete differentiation occur outside the gonad in a specific environment controlled by the epididymal epithelium. All the fundamental characteristics of a fertile spermatozoon are acquired sequentially during transit through the epididymal tubule. Full understanding of the mechanisms involved in these gamete modifications is a key to understanding and controlling such important stages in male fertility. With the development of new large scale technologies, large amounts of information give hope of identifying the fundamental elements involved in such cellular events and of being able to obtain some markers predictive of male fertility that would be valuable both in human and/or animal reproduction.