UC Riverside

Insect sperm behavior and physiology are highly understudied aspect of entomology. Culex pipiens mosquito sperm were used to investigate the parameters of mosquito sperm activation and motility. The importance of trypsin, serine protease, calcium, and phosphorylation were examined as important components in the activation and maintenance of sperm motility. Calcium demonstrated necessity in sperm motility including but not limited to waveform generation and directional changes of the sperm. The mechanism that play a role in facilitating calcium was also investigated as without calcium, motility and waveform generation is prevented. Sperm behavior in the presence of protein specific agonists and antagonists followed a proteomic analysis of the Culex pipiens sperm which assisted in narrowing down proteins that play a role in calcium mobilization. In the presence of T-type voltage-gated calcium channel antagonists, sperm motility was severely inhibited. These inhibitory effects on motility suggest that a T-type voltage-gated channel is responsible for mobilizing the calcium that is necessary for sperm motility.