BACKGROUND In fertile populations, little is known about the association between semen parameters and time to pregnancy (TTP). METHODS Pregnant women from Copenhagen, Edinburgh, Paris and Turku who conceived without medical intervention were asked for their TTP (942 couples), and their partners provided a semen sample. The proportion of morphologically normal sperm and the multiple anomalies ...

AIM The goal was to compare the effects of three different sperm preparation media on sperm motility, viability, and DNA integrity of semen samples from normozoospermic men. METHODS A total of 15 normozoospermic males were included in the study. The semen analysis (SA) was performed in accordance with the WHO guidelines (2010). After SA, each sample was divided into three aliquots, and swim-u...

Supplemental Methods 15 Sperm sample collection and library preparation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 Hierarchical clustering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 Orthologous promoter HMR sizes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 Ultra-conserved HMRs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ...

Thermotaxis that sperm migrate to higher temperature area has been confirmed in rabbit and human. In this study, we examined the migration ability of bull sperm in a temperature gradient to confirm thermotaxis and elucidate the involvement of calcium in such thermotaxis, as well as the relation between sperm capacitation and bull fertility. Thermotaxis was evaluated in a temperature gradient of...

To assess the relative impact of functional constraint and post-mating sexual selection on sequence evolution of reproductive proteins, we examined 169 primate sperm proteins. In order to recognize potential genome-wide trends, we additionally analysed a sample of altogether 318 non-reproductive (brain and postsynaptic) proteins. Based on cDNAs of eight primate species (Anthropoidea), we observ...

BACKGROUND Exposure to disinfection by-products (DBPs) has been demonstrated to impair male reproductive health in animals, but human evidence is limited and inconsistent. OBJECTIVE We examined the association between exposure to drinking-water DBPs and semen quality in a Chinese population. METHODS We recruited 2,009 men seeking semen analysis from the Reproductive Center of Tongji Hospita...

BACKGROUND We designed this study to detect the cryoinjury rate on human sperm after serial freezing and thawing, taking into consideration the effects of using cryovials and straws. MATERIALS AND METHODS In this experimental study, semen specimens obtained from 15 subjects were divided into normozoospermic and oligozoospermic groups. Each of the normozoospermic and oligozoo spermic semen spe...

Recent studies investigating possible causes of male subfertility have largely focused on how lifestyle or environmental factors impact on the process of spermatogenesis. Markedly, fewer studies have investigated those risk factors that result in reduced sperm quality, such as poor sperm motility. The speed at which sperm swim is a major predictor of fertility and is extremely variable in human...

1. A wide variety of procedures was used to test the motility of mammalian sperm after plunging them into liquid nitrogen at -195 degrees C. and later rapidly warming them to 35 degrees C. by plunging them into a suitable balanced and isotonic medium. 2. Using seminal fluid sperm from the same human donor, maximal numbers of motile sperm survived vitrification when the samples were (a) very fre...

The general population is exposed to phthalates through consumer products, diet, and medical devices. The present study explored whether phthalates, reproductive toxins in laboratory animals, were associated with altered sperm movement characteristics in men. Two-hundred twenty subjects provided a semen sample for computer-aided sperm analysis (CASA) and a urine sample for measurement of phthal...