Effect of Pure Follicular Fluid from Normal and PCOS Women on Human Sperm Kinematics and Viability

Background: Follicular fluid (FF) is transferred into ovarian tubes after ovulation, and in physiological condition, spermato-zoa is exposed to this fluid during fertilization. Chemical com-position of FF changes with some diseases such as polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS). The rate of successful fertilization in PCOS patients is lower than healthy women. The purpose of this study was to evaluate sperm velocity, motility and survival rate after incubation in follicular fluid from normal and PCOS women.Materials and Methods: The FF and semen samples were ob-tained from 20 healthy and PCOS volunteers (BMI<30 kg/m2, 18-36 years old) and 20 fertile men (20-40 years old) who were referred to Shiraz Infertility Center. The FF from 10 healthy women and 10 patients were separately filtered using 0.45 and 0.22 μm filters, pooled and stored at -20°C until usage. Semen samples were washed with Ham’s F10 and after swimming up were diluted to 10×106 sperm/mL. Sperm were incubated in Ham’s F10, as control group, and pooled FF, which obtained from normal and PCOS patients for two hours. The sperm kin-ematics and survival -rate were evaluated by sperm analyzer, (VT-Sperm 3.1) and eosin staining. Results were expressed as mean ± SEM using SPSS version 24 software. P<0.05 was considered as significant.results: The percentage of live sperm (73.31 ± 2.90 vs. 63.81± 2.93) and sperm with progressive (67.94 ± 1.40 vs. 63.44 ± 3.21) and non-progressive (8.83 ± 1.40 vs. 11.00 ± 1.33) motil-ity incubated in FF of normal and PCOS follicular fluid did not show any significant differences compared to each other and relative to control group. Furthermore, the straight-line velocity (µm/s) (VSL) (100.43 ± 6.76 vs. 86.06 ± 5.66) and curvilin-ear velocity (µm/s) (VCL) (143.10 ± 8.92 vs. 127.07 ± 6.75) showed no significant differences.Conclusion: To our best of knowledge, this study is the first one that compare the normal and PCOS FF as sperm incubation medium. Pure filtered human FF from normal or cystic follicles could be considered as suitable incubation medium for sperm. The changes in chemical components of FF from PCOS pa-tients do not damage to survival or motility of sperm.

کلیدواژه ها:

Human Sperm ، Motility ، Viability ، Follicular Fluid ، PCOS