Single structural defects involving the totality of ejaculated sperm are among rare cases of untreatable human male infertility. This form of infertility is of genetic origin and is generally transmitted as an autosomal recessive traits. Acrosome agenesis or globozoospermia results from perturbed expression of nuclear proteins or from an altered Golgi-nuclear recognition during spermiogenesis. ...

BACKGROUND Failed fertilization occurs in 2-3% of ICSI cycles and is mainly due to lack of oocyte activation. Heterologous ICSI of patient's sperm in mouse oocytes allows discrimination between sperm- and oocyte-related aetiologies of activation failure. Assisted oocyte activation (AOA) by Ca-ionophore treatment can initiate fertilization in subsequent therapeutic ICSI. We report on diagnosis a...

Sperm-head elongation and acrosome formation, which take place during the last stages of spermatogenesis, are essential to produce competent spermatozoa that are able to cross the oocyte zona pellucida and to achieve fertilization. During acrosome biogenesis, acrosome attachment and spreading over the nucleus are still poorly understood and to date no proteins have been described to link the ac...

Fluorescence in situ hybridization analysis, performed with chromosome specific DNA probes labeled with fluorochromes, is a simple and reliable tool for the indirect study of aneuploidies in interphase cells such as spermatozoa. It is known that infertile male patients with poor sperm quality, due to different causes, produce cytogenetically abnormal spermatozoa despite a normal constitutional ...

BACKGROUND Hrb is an HIV-1 Rev-binding/interacting protein and is a cofactor for Rev export pathway. Hrb interacts with Eps15 homology (EH) domain-containing proteins and is a component of EH network and functions in vesicle sorting. Earlier, we reported that Hrb-deficient male mice are infertile and that they show oligozoospermia. Their sperm lack acrosomes and present globozoospermia. The aim...

LINC complexes are evolutionarily conserved nuclear envelope bridges, physically connecting the nucleus to the peripheral cytoskeleton. They are pivotal for dynamic cellular and developmental processes, like nuclear migration, anchoring and positioning, meiotic chromosome movements and maintenance of cell polarity and nuclear shape. Active nuclear reshaping is a hallmark of mammalian sperm deve...

Dear Editor, I am Dr Xiao-Yu Yang, from the Center of Clinical Reproductive Medicine in the First Affiliated Hospital at the NanJing Medical University, Nanjing, China. We present here a case report of a globozoospermic patient whose partner became pregnant after intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI) with assisted oocyte activation (AOA). Globozoospermia is characterized by the presence of 10...