OBJECTIVE Growth hormone and its mediator, insulin-like growth factor-1 (IGF-1), have been suggested to exert gonadotropic actions in both humans and animals. The present study was conducted to assess the relationship between serum IGF-1 concentration, seminal plasma concentration, and sperm parameter abnormalities. METHODS A total of 79 men were enrolled in this study from December 2011 to J...

sting by E Abstract Introduction: Intrauterine insemination (IUI) is a valid treatment for infertility with a cumulative pregnancy rate of 40–90% after 3–10 treatment cycles. Design: We prospectively studied the efficacy of a new simplified method for motile sperm preparation for IUI for both male causes of infertility, and for those diagnosed with idiopathic infertility. Methods: A prospective...

In France, assisted reproductive technology (ART) for hepatitis C virus (HCV)-infected patients is now subject to strict control after the publication of recent guidelines. Infertile serodiscordant couples (HCV-viraemic men and their seronegative female partners) require special care to carried out in designated 'viral risk' laboratories. Twelve sequential semen samples taken from an HCV chroni...

The gender of the offspring is determined by the fertilizing sperm. Previous gender studies were based on washed sperm, but not on sperm in seminal plasma. The objective was to correlate motility parameters assessed during semen analyses with the offspring gender. For comparison, fixed sperm head DNA quantitated by Hoechst 33342 fluorescence microscopy was also analyzed. Forty-six patients unde...

The ability to cryopreserve spermatozoa from all of the domestic species is challenging. Even though all of the cells must endure similar physical stresses associated with the cryopreservation processes, sperm from the different species are very different in size, shape and lipid composition, all of which affect cryosurvival. Thus, when a cryopreservation protocol has been optimized for sperm o...

Spermatozoa generate reactive oxygen species (ROS) in physiological amounts, which play a role in sperm functions during sperm capacitation, acrosome reaction (AR), and oocyte fusion. In addition, damaged sperm are likely to be the source of ROS. The most important ROS produced by human sperm are hydrogen peroxide, superoxide anion and hydroxyl radicals. Besides, human seminal plasma and sperm ...

Paternal characteristics and exposures influence physiology and disease risks in progeny, but the mechanisms are mostly unknown. Seminal fluid, which affects female reproductive tract gene expression as well as sperm survival and integrity, provides one potential pathway. We evaluated in mice the consequences for offspring of ablating the plasma fraction of seminal fluid by surgical excision of...

Zona pellucida (ZP) penetration, in vitro fertilization, embryo development, and the morphology of fertilizing sperm were examined through use of normospermic (> 60% structurally normal sperm/ejaculate) versus teratospermic (< 40% structurally normal sperm/ejaculate) ejaculates from domestic cats. In addition, the effect of swim-up processing on sperm-oocyte interaction was compared with that o...

INTRODUCTION The swim up and the density-gradient centrifugation are the two main techniques which are used to separate the viable motile sperm fraction in the assisted reproductive technology. However, there are several published studies about these methods, but there is no sufficient evidence for recommending the superiority of one of them. This study was designed to study the efficiency of t...