Characterization of human sperm antigens and antisperm antibodies in infertile patients

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

“…Moreover, a considerable proportion (42%) of sera at 1: 1000 dilution were found to be immunoreactive with sperm extracts in accordance with the existence of a higher sperm antibody concentration in the infertile population [6,7,10]. The routine degree of dilution of serum and seminal plasma employed in the present study (1:20 in serum and 1:8 in seminal plasma) was within the range of the commonly used dilutions, between 1:10 and 1:100 in serum [6,[9][10][11][12][13]19] and between 1:8 and 1:100 in seminal plasma [11,19]. These dilutions were chosen because they could reduce nonspecific reactions in the immunoblotting, because they guaranteed an effective antigen characterization, and also because they were the same as those applied to the fertile population [21], even though they were not suitable for a quantitative evaluation of sperm antibody concentration.…”

“…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.…”

“…A 62-kDa protein has also been shown to be the major antigen reactive with local sperm antibodies from infertile subjects [11]. Other investigators have asserted that major targets for serum sperm antibodies from infertile individuals, which may be significant in immunoinfertility and have potential application in immunocontraception, are proteins of approximately 57 kDa [19] or 58 kDa [6,15]. 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.…”

“…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.…”

In vitro and in vivo studies evaluating antisemen antibodies as a potential spermicidal agent in hamsters

“…Antisperm antibodies (ASAs) affect the fertilization and fertility both in vitro and in vivo (9). It had been shown that both males and females can make antibodies that react with human sperm.…”