Male infertility is commonly associated with sperm abnormalities including asthenozoospermia. The molecular basis of asthenozoospermia was linked to mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) mutations. The 4,977‐bp human mtDNA deletion is one of the most common mutations of spermatozoa and results in loss of about 33% of the mitochondrial genome. In this preliminary study, we aimed to investigate the presence of 4,977‐bp mtDNA deletion in asthenozoospermic infertile men in Jordan. Semen specimens of 120 asthenozoospermic infertile men and 80 normozoospermic individuals were collected at the in vitro fertilization unit. MtDNA was extracted after the enrichment of spermatozoa; then, polymerase chain reaction was performed using 4,977‐bp mtDNA deletion‐specific primers. The deletion of 4,977‐bp mtDNA was detected in 79.2% of asthenozoospermic patients compared to 10% in normozoospermic controls. The results showed a significant association between the presence of 4,977‐bp mtDNA deletion and the asthenozoospermia and infertility (OR = 34.2000, 95% CI = 14.57–80.26, p‐value < .001). In conclusion, our findings underscored a strong association between 4,977‐bp mtDNA deletion and asthenozoospermia in the Jordanian population.

Sperm mitochondrial dysfunction causes the generation of an insufficient amount of energy needed for sperm motility. This will affect sperm fertilization capacity, and thus, most asthenozoospermic men usually require assisted reproductive techniques. The etiology of asthenozoospermia remains largely unknown. The current study aimed to investigate the effect of mitochondrial genetic variants on sperm motility and intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI) outcomes. A total of 150 couples from the ICSI cycle were enrolled in this study. One hundred five of the male partners were asthenozoospermic patients, and they were subdivided into three groups according to their percentage of sperm motility, while forty-five of the male partners were normozoospermic. Genetic variants were screened using direct Sanger’s sequencing in four mitochondrial genes (nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide hydrogen (NADH) dehydrogenase 1 (ND1), NADH dehydrogenase 2 (ND2), NADH dehydrogenase 5 (ND5), and NADH dehydrogenase 6 (ND6)). We identified three significant variants: 13708G>A (rs28359178) in ND5, 4216T>C (rs1599988) in ND1, and a novel 12506T>A in ND5 with P values 0.006, 0.036, and 0.013, respectively. The medians of sperm motility, fertilization rate, embryo cleavage score, and embryo quality score were significantly different between men showing 4216T>C, 12506T>A, 13708G>A and wild type, Mann-Whitney P values for the differences in the medians were < 0.05 in all of them. The results from this study suggest that 13708G>A, 12506T>A, and 4216 T>C variants in sperm mitochondrial DNA negatively affect sperm motility and ICSI outcomes.

No abstract

Elevated concentrations of reactive oxygen species (ROS) in the semen can lead to oxidative protein damage as they react with the amino acids' side chains in the protein, leading to the generation of carbonyl groups. This study aimed to investigate the effect of protein carbonyl (PC) concentration on sperm motility and the laboratory intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI) outcomes. A total of 150 couples from the ICSI cycle were enrolled in this study and were divided into three groups (G) according to the PC concentration as following, G1 included samples with PC concentrations <0.65 nmol/mg, G2 included samples with 0.65≤PC≤2.23 nmol/mg and G3 included samples with PC>2.23 (nmol/mg). PC concentrations were measured in all semen samples, and the laboratory ICSI outcomes were evaluated for all injected oocytes. The Kruskal–Wallis p‐values for the differences in the medians of sperm motility, fertilisation rate, embryo cleavage score and embryo quality score were <0.05. Furthermore, Dunn's post hoc test showed a significant difference between all groups, p‐values <0.05, except for the medians of embryo quality score between G2 and G3. In conclusion, our results showed that sperm motility and laboratory ICSI outcomes are affected negatively by higher concentrations of PC in the semen.

In statistics we often experience combining n-independent tests of simple hypothesis, versus a one-tailed alternative as n approaches infinity. In the present study, we consider combining independent tests in case of conditional normal distribution with probability density function Xjh$N ðch; 1Þ; h 2 ½a; 1Þ; a ! 0 when h 1 ; h 2 ; ::: have a distribution function (DF) F h : Four nonparametric combination procedures (Fisher, logistic, sum of p-values and inverse normal) were compared via the exact Bahadur slope. We concluded that the inverse normal procedure is better than the other procedures.