Abstract

ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND:
The sperm DNA integrity is a vital factor to transmit the genetic material and complete the process of the formation of new generation. Many studies tried to explain the male infertility of unknown cause as a result of the presence of high percentage of sperms with DNA damage and found its correlation with the standard seminal analysis parameters.
OBJECTIVE:
This study was conducted to find the correlation between percentage of sperm death and percentage of sperms with DNA fragmentation and to calculate the percentage of live sperms with DNA damage.
METHODS:
Thirty four infertile patients were included in this study. And twenty fertile patients were volunteered as controls. Standard clinical semen analysis was performed according to World Health Organization (1999) criteria. The stain eosin–Y was used to assess sperm viability. The Terminal deoxynucleotidyl transferase-mediated dUTP- nick end labeling assay (TUNEL) was performed to observe the sperms with DNA fragmentation.
RESULT:
The percentage of sperms with DNA damage in the seminal sample was significantly positively correlated with the percentage of dead sperms (r=0.888; p=0.0001) and the percentage of sperms with abnormal morphology (r=0.707; p=0.0001). The percentage of live sperms with DNA damage was about 7% in infertile samples and about 11% in healthy samples.
CONCLUSION:
The small percentage of live sperms with DNA fragmentation in ejaculate could not explain idiopathic male infertility. This study concluded also that sperm DNA fragmentation could be considered as an independent parameter of sperm quality to differentiate infertile from fertile semen samples