Mountant-induced loss of Shorr-stained blue sperm tails

Abstract

It has been reported that Shorr staining provides additional morphological information on the motility of spermatozoa in semen, by distinguishing between red and blue flagella. With our routine methods (involving mounting slides) we were unable to confirm these observations. The presence of both red-and blue-coloured sperm tails in Shorr-stained semen smears was apparent, however, if slides were unmounted. Only a very weak association between blue flagellar staining and immotility was observed. Stating whether a mountant was used should be reported. (2010) plasma or liposomes was correlated with more red tails [5,6] and corpus spermatozoa showed parallel increases in motility and red-staining after pentoxyfylline and phospholipid treatment [6]. As the sperm cholesterol/ phospholipid ratio decreases upon epididymal maturation [7], lipid components may be eliminated from immature spermatozoa affecting flagellar motility and red staining; indeed, impaired epididymal sperm maturation reflected in asthenozoospermia results in blue sperm-tail staining [8]. These interesting observations, generated by one laboratory, need confirmation. Our laboratory has been unable to confirm the relationship between red-blue tail staining and motility and we sought the reason why. Asian Journal of Andrology Materials and methodsAir-dried smears of semen from patients attending the Centre of Reproductive Medicine and Andrology of the University Münster, providing a wide range of motile spermatozoa, were examined after Shorr staining for red and blue flagella. The Shorr stain methods used were (1) that given in the World Health Organization