There has been a growing interest over the past few years in the impact of male nutrition on fertility. Infertility has been linked to male overweight or obesity, and conventional semen parameter values seem to be altered in case of high body mass index (BMI). A few studies assessing the impact of BMI on sperm DNA integrity have been published, but they did not lead to a strong consensus. Our objective was to explore further the relationship between sperm DNA integrity and BMI, through a 3-year multicentre study. Three hundred and thirty male partners in subfertile couples were included. Using the terminal uridine nick-end labelling (TUNEL) assay, we observed an increased rate of sperm DNA damage in obese men (odds ratio (95% confidence interval): 2.5 (1.2-5.1)).

Prenatal BoBs™ is a robust technology for the investigation of fetuses with normal karyotype with or without sonographic abnormalities. Running in parallel with the karyotype analysis, it can be proposed instead of rapid FISH or QF-PCR providing rapid results on common aneuploidies and additional information regarding the microdeletion syndromes.

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Reactive oxygen species (ROS) have a negative impact on sperm DNA, leading to the formation of oxidative products such as 8-oxo-7,8-dihydroxyguanosine. This compound causes fragmentation and, thus, has a mutagenic effect. Patient treatment with oral antioxidant vitamins is, therefore, standard practice for male infertility, in an attempt to decrease formation of ROS and improve fertility. In this study, the DNA fragmentation index and the degree of sperm decondensation were measured using the sperm chromatin structure assay before and after 90 days treatment with antioxidant vitamins associated with zinc and selenium. Antioxidant treatment led to a decrease in sperm DNA fragmentation (-19.1%, P < 0.0004), suggesting that at least part of the decay was linked to ROS. However, it also led to an unexpected negative effect: an increase in sperm decondensation with the same order of magnitude (+22.8%, P < 0.0009). The opening of interchain disulphide bridges in protamines may explain this aspect, as antioxidant vitamins, especially vitamin C, are able to open the cystin net, thus interfering with paternal gene activity during preimplantation development. This observation might explain the discrepancy observed concerning the role of these antioxidant treatments in improving male fertility.

Array CGH is becoming an important clinical assay for unbalanced chromosome abnormalities whether cells grow in culture or not and in cases of analysis on one or few cells.

These results show that in an unselected group of patients, there is no evident benefit to supplement GnRH antagonist-treated cycles with rLH.

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An increasing number of publications indicate that babies born after IVF (in vitro fertilization) procedures have higher rates of anomalies related to imprinting/epigenetic changes, which may be attributed to suboptimal culture conditions. Appropriate maintenance of DNA methylation during the first few days of an in vitro culture requires a supply of methyl donors, which are lacking in current in vitro culture systems. The absence of protection against oxidative stress in the culture increases the risks for errors in methylation. A decrease in the methylation processes is sometimes observed immediately post fertilization, due to delays that occur during the maternal–zygotic transition period. Care should be exercised in ART (assisted reproductive technology) procedures in order to avoid the risk of generating errors in methylation during the in vitro culture period immediately post fertilization, which has an impact on imprinting/epigenetics. Formulation of IVF culture media needs to be re-assessed in the perspective of current knowledge regarding embryo physiology.