Analysis of the surface labelling characteristics of human spermatozoa and the interaction with anti-sperm antibodies

Characterization of Human Sperm Antigens Reacting with Sperm Antibodies from Autologous Serum and Seminal Plasma in an Infertile Population1

“…Regarding the group 3 antigens, our data agree with the observation of Mathur et al [6], who suggested a 45-46-kDa protein as a fertile sperm-specific antigen. Other studies, however, are in contrast with our findings, and have identified proteins at 44-45 kDa [11,14,16,19], 55 kDa [19], and 84 kDa [13] in infertile subjects as functional in immunoinfertility.…”

“…The literature contains numerous reports on the characterization by immunoblotting techniques of sperm antigens targeted by sperm antibodies [6,7,[9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20]. These studies revealed contradictory data on the molecular masses of antigens that potentially play an important role in the fertilization process.…”

“…Several studies reporting on identification of the sperm antigens targeted by circulating and/or local antibodies in men [6,9,10,[12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20] were performed largely on infertile individuals and often did not include evaluation of the reaction of sperm antigens with control fertile serum. Furthermore, results on the molecular masses of the sperm antigens were contradictory because of differences in the antigen extraction procedures and the serum samples used for the various studies.…”

Immunologically Mediated Male and Female Reproductive Failure

“…In apparent contrast with these findings, Bronson et al (1981) reported that some sera containing ASAs promoted the penetration of zona-free hamster eggs by human spermatozoa after enhancing their oolemmal adhesion. These observations were confirmed by Aitken et al (1987Aitken et al ( , 1988, who showed that purified IgG from sera of patients containing ASAs could promote human sperm penetration of zona-free hamster eggs, inhibit penetration, or be inactive. observed that when ASAs promoted penetration, the number of oolemma-adherent antibody-labeled sperm was greatly increased (Table 4).…”

Human Sperm Proteome: Immunodominant Sperm Surface Antigens Identified with Sera from Infertile Men and Women1

“…Several groups have reported on the identification of sperm antigens recognized by systemic and/or local autoand iso-antibodies from infertile individuals using immunoblotting techniques [17,[18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32]. In most cases, however, the reactions of sperm antigens with control sera from fertile individuals were not described, so the functional relevance of these antigens in fertility remains unclear.…”