Correlation of sperm damaged membrane with protamine deficiency and apoptosis

Background: The first step of the evaluation for fertilization potential in men is semen analysis. Before assisted reproduction techniques, routinely, preparation of samples is performed by Density gradient centrifuge (DGC) or swim up procedures and, abnormal sperm in relation to morphology and motility is removed. But this procedure does not guarantee sperm DNA integrity. Therefore, several sperm preparation procedures have been developed based on cellular and molecular characteristics including membrane properties of spermatozoa that its damage has shown a significant correlation with DNA damage. One technique reflecting the membrane integrity is hypo-osmotic swelling test which has been used to evaluate sperm viability and membrane integrity. Therefore, we aimed to assess correlation between abnormal sperm morphology, protamine deficiency and the early stages of apoptosis with together after exposing the sperms to hypotonic condition.Methods: We used twenty five randomly collected semen samples. Washed semen samples were exposed to hypotonic condition, then assessed for abnormal morphology, protamine deficiency and the early stages of apoptosis using papanicoulau, CMA3 staining and Annexin V techniques, respectively.Result: The result shows that the percentage of HOST negative sperm has significant correlation with percentages sperms with abnormal morphology (P=.0.02), protamine deficiency (P=0.001) and apoptotic sperm (P=0.006).Conclusion: Sperm with damaged membrane shows high rate of protamine deficiency and apoptosis mark. Therefore, this sperm are more prone to DNA damage. However, further studies will be needed to confirm this result.

کلیدواژه ها:

Apoptosis ، Membrane integrity ، HOST ، Protamine deficiency