Semen analysis

About: Semen analysis is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 4909 publications have been published within this topic receiving 143225 citations.

Development of an assay to assess the functional integrity of the human sperm membrane and its relationship to other semen characteristics

Abstract: The objective of this study was to develop a relatively simple test to evaluate the functional integrity of the membranes of human spermatozoa. As in some other species, human spermatozoa 'swell' under hypo-osmotic conditions due to the influx of water and the expansion of the membranes. A mixture of equal parts of fructose and sodium citrate (150 mosmol) with calculated ionic strength of 0.15 resulted in a maximal number of clearly identifiable swollen spermatozoa. Only small variations were seen when different aliquants of the same semen samples were separately evaluated. A high correlation (r = 0.94) was obtained between expected and observed values of swollen spermatozoa when known amounts of heat-treated spermatozoa, unable to undergo swelling, were added to untreated spermatozoa. A good correlation (r = 0.90) was also observed between the % spermatozoa in a semen sample that were capable of undergoing swelling and the % of denuded hamster oocytes that were penetrated by capacitated spermatozoa from the same semen sample. By contrast, the correlations between % sperm swelling in ejaculates and % normal sperm forms, % motile spermatozoa and % spermatozoa that do not stain with eosin-Y (supravital stain) in the same ejaculates were 0.30, 0.61 and 0.52, respectively. Therefore, the hypoosmotic swelling technique to evaluate the functional integrity of the sperm membrane appears to give high repeatability and accuracy and is closely correlated to the in-vitro fertilizing ability of spermatozoa. It may be a useful addition to the standard semen analysis.

Sperm Morphology, Motility, and Concentration in Fertile and Infertile Men

Abstract: Background Although semen analysis is routinely used to evaluate the male partner in infertile couples, sperm measurements that discriminate between fertile and infertile men are not well defined. Methods We evaluated two semen specimens from each of the male partners in 765 infertile couples and 696 fertile couples at nine sites. The female partners in the infertile couples had normal results on fertility evaluation. The sperm concentration and motility were determined at the sites; semen smears were stained at the sites and shipped to a central laboratory for an assessment of morphologic features of sperm with the use of strict criteria. We used classification-and-regression-tree analysis to estimate threshold values for subfertility and fertility with respect to the sperm concentration, motility, and morphology. We also used an analysis of receiver-operating-characteristic curves to assess the relative value of these sperm measurements in discriminating between fertile and infertile men. Results The su...

Detection of deoxyribonucleic acid fragmentation in human sperm: correlation with fertilization in vitro.

Abstract: The objective of this study was to determine the incidence of DNA fragmentation in human sperm, and to correlate any detected DNA damage with semen analysis parameters and fertilization rates in in vitro fertilization (IVF). A total of 298 semen samples were collected from men in the infertility program at The Toronto Hospital. For each sample, the percentage of sperm with DNA fragmentation was determined using the method of terminal deoxynucleotidyl transferase-mediated dUTP-biotin end-labeling (TUNEL) and fluorescence-activated cell sorting. The percentage of sperm with fragmented DNA was less than 4% in the majority of samples but ranged from 5% to 40% in approximately 27% of the samples. A negative correlation was found between the percentage of DNA fragmentation and the motility, morphology, and concentration of the ejaculated sperm. In 143 IVF samples, a significant negative association was also found between the percentage of sperm with DNA fragmentation and fertilization rate (p = 0.008) and embryo cleavage rate (p = 0.01). In addition, 35 men who smoked demonstrated an increased percentage of sperm with fragmented DNA (4.7 +/- 1.2%) as compared to 78 nonsmokers (1.1 +/- 0.2%; p = 0.01). These results demonstrate a negative association between semen analysis parameters and sperm with fragmented DNA. Since extremely poor semen samples are the indication for intracytoplasmic sperm injection, there is a high likelihood that sperm with fragmented DNA may be selected by chance and used for oocyte injection, resulting in poor fertilization and/or cleavage rates.