This may be of interest to you if you have been trying to get pregnant for a while without success.
According to a study published in the June/July issue of the Journal of Andrology, researchers have developed a test that will choose male sperm with the best DNA integrity in an effort to improve male fertility.
The researchers say that the method is similar to that of the female egg’s natural selection abilities.
Co-author Gabor Huszar, who is the senior research scientist in Obstetrics, Gynaecology and Reproductive Sciences at Yale School of Medicine had this to say about the research:
“Our results could help address the fact that approximately 40 percent of infertility cases can be traced to male infertility.”
Huszar went on to say that in the past, semen analysis was focused on a high concentration of sperm and also the motility of sperm, or ability to move quickly in the right direction. It was long assumed that a high sperm count and mobile sperm guaranteed male fertility.
However, in those semen analyses, there was no way to gather information about the sperm’s fertility or its ability to attach itself to its target, the female egg.
Ideally, an egg will naturally choose the best sperm. But, when using ART techniques such as In Vitro Fertilization, there was no way to determine which sperm were the best.
Now, with this breakthrough research, clinicians will be able to select the best sperm through biochemical markers of sperm fertility, and therefore only use sperm of the highest genetic integrity for IVF and other ART procedures.
The researchers tested the idea that sperm with a high DNA integrity could be found by binding the sperm to hyaluronic acid.
Semen samples were studied from a test group of 50 men, with some of the sperm being allowed to bind to hyaluronic acid. These sperm were then isolated and compared to the sperm that didn’t bind to the hyaluronic acid. The sperm were compared as to DNA chain integrity.
A reagent was used that stained the sperm with high DNA integrity green, and the sperm with fragmented DNA, or lower DNA integrity, were stained red.
“The sperm with fragmented DNA work like scratched CDs,” Huszar stated. “They seem to be operational, but when you play them, some of the information is missing.”
Huszar added that the damaged sperm might also carry chromosomal aberrations that could be related to genetic diseases.
This is indeed a major scientific breakthrough, and will hopefully do a lot to combat male infertility.
Citation: June/July issue of Journal of Andrology
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