Advances in sperm analysis: techniques, discoveries and applications

Dai, Changsheng; Zhang, Zhuoran; Shan, Guanqiao; Chu, Lap-Tak; Huang, Zongjie; Moskovtsev, Sergey I.; Librach, Clifford L.; Jarvi, Keith; Sun, Yu

doi:10.1038/s41585-021-00472-2

Cited by 40 publications

(23 citation statements)

References 241 publications

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“…In summary, this review provides a timely evaluation of how environmental toxicants may impede male infertility through changes in signaling cascades/pathways, providing a fresh view on the worldwide declining male fertility in countries across the globe [ 138 , 139 , 140 ].…”

Section: Concluding Remarks and Future Perspectivesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Cell-Cell Interaction-Mediated Signaling in the Testis Induces Reproductive Dysfunction—Lesson from the Toxicant/Pharmaceutical Models

Wang

et al. 2022

Cells

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Emerging evidence has shown that cell-cell interactions between testicular cells, in particular at the Sertoli cell-cell and Sertoli-germ cell interface, are crucial to support spermatogenesis. The unique ultrastructures that support cell-cell interactions in the testis are the basal ES (ectoplasmic specialization) and the apical ES. The basal ES is found between adjacent Sertoli cells near the basement membrane that also constitute the blood-testis barrier (BTB). The apical ES is restrictively expressed at the Sertoli-spermatid contact site in the apical (adluminal) compartment of the seminiferous epithelium. These ultrastructures are present in both rodent and human testes, but the majority of studies found in the literature were done in rodent testes. As such, our discussion herein, unless otherwise specified, is focused on studies in testes of adult rats. Studies have shown that the testicular cell-cell interactions crucial to support spermatogenesis are mediated through distinctive signaling proteins and pathways, most notably involving FAK, Akt1/2 and Cdc42 GTPase. Thus, manipulation of some of these signaling proteins, such as FAK, through the use of phosphomimetic mutants for overexpression in Sertoli cell epithelium in vitro or in the testis in vivo, making FAK either constitutively active or inactive, we can modify the outcome of spermatogenesis. For instance, using the toxicant-induced Sertoli cell or testis injury in rats as study models, we can either block or rescue toxicant-induced infertility through overexpression of p-FAK-Y397 or p-FAK-Y407 (and their mutants), including the use of specific activator(s) of the involved signaling proteins against pAkt1/2. These findings thus illustrate that a potential therapeutic approach can be developed to manage toxicant-induced male reproductive dysfunction. In this review, we critically evaluate these recent findings, highlighting the direction for future investigations by bringing the laboratory-based research through a translation path to clinical investigations.

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Section: Concluding Remarks and Future Perspectivesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Cell-Cell Interaction-Mediated Signaling in the Testis Induces Reproductive Dysfunction—Lesson from the Toxicant/Pharmaceutical Models

Wang

et al. 2022

Cells

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“…Microfluidic methods have been developed that target all aspects of human reproduction and the infertility issue, from sperm analysis and selection, to evaluating embryo development, to developing organotypic models of the reproductive tract for better understanding of the in vivo process, and finally in combination with artificial intelligence to enable new capabilities in selecting the best sperm, egg, or embryo. [7][8][9][10][11][12] Sperm analysis and sorting technologies…”

Section: Microfluidics For Fertilitymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Recent microfluidic developments in the fertility area have mainly focused on replicating existing clinical practices to offer automation and standardization, 3,10,11 missing some of the important technological gaps in the field. For example, both microfluidic and traditional approaches for sperm selection are poor substitutes for the multiplexed selection platform in vivo which is highly confined, chemically complex, and viscous.…”

Section: Addressing Clinical Pain Points Using Microfluidicsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Lab on a chip devices for fertility: from proof-of-concept to clinical impact

Nosrati

2022

Lab Chip

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“…A comprehensive review of artificial intelligence in fertility is presented by Riegler et al [35] which covers the broader subject matter of assisted reproductive technology, but collates key contributions to CASA using artificial intelligence. Dai et al [36] present a review of recent advances in sperm analysis, illustrating that the field is an active one, garnering the attention of many researchers.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Image Trinarization Using a Partial Differential Equations: A Novel Approach to Automatic Sperm Image Analysis

Jacobs¹

2022

Preprint

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Partial differential equations have recently garnered substantial attention as an image processing framework due to their extensibility, the ability to rigorously engineer and analyse the governing dynamics as well as the ease of implementation using numerical methods. This paper explores a novel approach to image trinarization with a concrete real-world application of classifying regions of sperm images used in the automatic analysis of sperm morphology. The proposed methodology engineers a diffusion equation with non-linear source term, exhibiting three steady-states. The model is implemented as an image processor using a standard finite difference method to illustrate the efficacy of the proposed approach. The performance of the proposed approach is benchmarked against standard image clustering/segmentation methods and shown to be highly effective.

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Advances in sperm analysis: techniques, discoveries and applications

Cited by 40 publications

References 241 publications

Cell-Cell Interaction-Mediated Signaling in the Testis Induces Reproductive Dysfunction—Lesson from the Toxicant/Pharmaceutical Models

Cell-Cell Interaction-Mediated Signaling in the Testis Induces Reproductive Dysfunction—Lesson from the Toxicant/Pharmaceutical Models

Lab on a chip devices for fertility: from proof-of-concept to clinical impact

Image Trinarization Using a Partial Differential Equations: A Novel Approach to Automatic Sperm Image Analysis

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