Table 4

Human sperm penetration into the ZP of unfertilised and fertilised oocytes

Unfertilised oocytes

Fertilised oocytes

Experiment

Number of embedded spermatozoa per ZP mean ± SEM

Penetrated zona pellucida %

Number of embedded spermatozoa per ZP mean ± SEM

Penetrated zona pellucida %

1

0.93 ± 0.32

57 (8/14)^a

0.18 ± 0.13**

18* (2/11)

2

1.14 ± 0.60

57 (4/7)

0.22 ± 0.11**

17*(4/23)

3

1.14 ± 0.43

57 (8/14)

0.26 ± 0.13**

21*(4/19)

Total

1.06 ± 0.23

57 (20/35)

0.23 ± 0.07***

19*** (10/53)

()^anumber of oocytes with penetrated zona pellucida/total number of oocytes; *,**,*** statistically different from unfertilised oocytes: * p < 0.05; ** p < 0.01; *** p < 0.001 with Student's t test (mean ± SEM) or Chi-squared test (%).

Patrat et al. BMC Developmental Biology 2006 6:59   doi:10.1186/1471-213X-6-59