Male Infertility and Sperm DNA Fragmentation

Abstract

BACKGROUND:One of the main factors affecting male infertility is DNA fragmentation in sperm. Male infertility is a heterogeneous group of disorders, known causes account for only 30-50%, and unknown cause (idiopathic) constitute the rest. Infertility involves nearly 15% of couples in the reproductive age, and only the male problem involves about 40% of the problems.AIM:We have studied our DNA damage to sperm cells of a group of infertile males (113 patients) with abnormal sperm parameters (oligoasthenospermia and oligospermia) and a group of male patients (80 patients) with normal semen parameters (normospermia) to document whether the Sperm Chromatin Dispersion (SCD) analysis could increase the information obtained from the sperm routine analysis to explain the causes of infertility.MATERIALS:A group of 193 patients were analysed, 113 patients in the working group and 80 patients in the control group were screened. The ejaculate samples were taken by the patient to whom the reason for the analysis was explained. All patients were from the Republic of Kosovo. Samples are collected from 2014/2018. Sperm Chromatin Dispersion (SCD) analyses in the ejaculate were analysed by the Biolab Zafi laboratory in Peja.RESULTS:Clinical data were compared between the two groups by one-way ANOVA, mean ± SD, student’s t-test. A p-value of less than P < 0.05% was considered statistically significant. Outcomes: In our study, we have gained significant (P < 0.05) results in the workgroup and the control group across all hormonal parameters, sperm parameters, and fragmented DNA in the sperm.CONCLUSION:Based on our obtained results we can conclude that DNA fragmentation in spermatozoa is useful in the selection of unsuitable DNA sperm for use in ART methods. We conclude that our DNA fragmentation analysis results are encouraging and can be used for diagnostic purposes in determining male infertility.

Forensic Relationship between ATP6 Gene and Sperm Motility in a Saudi Population

“…Refaat (2016) revealed that the Y-STR profiles of the azoospermic sperms were fully documented without any abnormalities. However, DNA fragmentation was characteristic for the infertile sperms and might be diagnostic for male infertility (Zeqiraj et al, 2018). There is no evidence that the DNA fragmentation in the infertile males could affect the STR profiling or the mtDNA.…”

Diagnostics of DNA fragmentation in human spermatozoa: Are sperm chromatin structure analysis and sperm chromatin dispersion tests (SCD‐HaloSpermG2 ® ) comparable?

“…The SCD assay has also been used for a long time (Fernández et al, ), being further developed under time to attempt becoming an economical and management alternative to SCSA (Feijó & Esteves, ). As such, it has been adopted by many IVF clinics since it is simple, quick, does not require expensive or complicated instruments and, moreover, has high reproducibility (<3% intra‐assay variation; Panner Selvam & Agarwal, ; Zeqiraj et al, ). The CV for the reference sample and replicates assayed in the present study were well within these values, confirming previous studies (Erenpreiss, Bungum, et al, ).…”

“…Among these, the most popular for screening purposes is the sperm chromatin structure assay (SCSA), a 30‐year‐old flow cytometry/specific software‐linked methodology with high repeatability and low variation (1%–3%; Evenson, ), but requires specialised technicians for running it. Another technique with increasing popularity is the commercially available new kit for the sperm chromatin dispersion testing (SCD, HaloSpermG2 ® ; Zeqiraj et al, ). The SCD has high reproducibility (<3%) and does not require complex instruments becoming simpler and quick to run (Fernández et al, ).…”

Sperm DNA Integrity and Male Fertility in Farm Animals: A Review

“…Despite its highly complex structure, sperm DNA is susceptible to damage and nearly 80% of infertility cases due to idiopathic reasons are related to DNA integrity (11). The proportion of spermatozoa with DNA fragmentation was 34.5% in infertile men while it was only 14.9% in fertile men (76). Assessment of sperm DNA fragmentation represents a promising tool for clinical and research practice (77), although larger prospective trials are needed.…”