Spermicidal effects in vitro of gossypol acetic acid-povidone coprecipitate

The spermicidal activities in vitro of gossypol acetic acid (GA), GA-polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP) coprecipitate (GPC), phenyl mercuric acetate (PMA) and nonoxynol-9 on spermatozoa of human, hamster, mouse, rat, guinea pig and dog were determined by Sander and Cramer’s method (1941). The coprecipitate used in the study was GPC, GA-PVP (Mr 35 000) (1/15, wt/wt) and its solubility in saline increased with increasing amout of PVP. PVP alone did not decrease spermatozoa motility for all species tested. GA 150 mg/ml did not inhibit human spermatozoa motility in 20 s. In contrast to the PVP and GA, GPC was actively spermicidal. GPC (50 mg/ml for guinea pig and dog spermatozoa, 133.3 mg/ml for mouse, hamster and human spermatozoa) were required to immobilize these spermatozoa within 20 s. Guinea pig and dog seemed to be the sensitive species to GPC. These results were similar to those obtained by Waller et al (1984). PMA and nonoxynol-9 exhibited spermicidal activity 11-22 time higher than that of GPC, but irritation of the latter to mucus is smaller than both of the formers.