background: flow cytometry (fcm) has been extensively used to study mammalian sperm in the areas of clinical andrology and reproductive toxicology. fcm provides a powerful advantage over microscopy technique in terms of rapid accurate and reproducible technology for the quantification of various cell characteristics including chromatin status. during spermiogenesis histones are replaced by prot...

sperm dna is known to contribute one half of the genomic material to the offspring. the integrity of sperm dna is important in fertilization, embryonic and fetal development, and postnatal child well being. the nature has created multiple barriers that allow only the fittest sperm to reach and fertilize an oocyte. however, assisted reproductive techniques (art), like ivf and icsi, may allow spe...

The standard semen analysis is the first line and the most popular laboratory test in the diagnosis of male fertility. It evaluates sperm concentration, motility, morphology and their vitality. However, it is well-known that normal results of semen analysis can not exclude men from the causes of couples' infertility. One of the most important parameters of sperm in its fertilizing potential is ...

Meiotic chromosomes in an oocyte are not only a maternal genome carrier but also provide a positional signal to induce cortical polarization and define asymmetric meiotic division of the oocyte, resulting in polar body extrusion and haploidization of the maternal genome. The meiotic chromosomes play dual function in determination of meiosis: 1) organizing a bipolar spindle formation and 2) indu...

OBJECTIVE This study was performed to evaluate testicular sperm chromatin condensation using aniline blue-eosin (AB-E) staining and its effects on IVF-ET. METHODS Chromatin condensation was analyzed using AB-E staining in 27 cases of testicular sperm extraction. There were 19 cases of obstructive azoospermia (OA) and 8 cases of non-obstructive azoospermia (NOA) in IVF-ET. Mature sperm heads w...

The classical idea about the function of the mammalian sperm chromatin is that it serves to transmit a highly protected and transcriptionally inactive paternal genome, largely condensed by protamines, to the next generation. In addition, recent sperm chromatin genome-wide dissection studies indicate the presence of a differential distribution of the genes and repetitive sequences in the protami...

Background: Because the etiopathogenesis of male infertility is multifactorial our study was designed to clarify relationship between standard semen parameters, testicular volume, levels reproductive hormones and fragmentation sperm nuclear DNA (SDF). Methods: Patients (n = 130) were clustered as subjects: 1) with an abnormal volum...

Received: 13 November 2010 Revised: 16 May 2011 Accepted: 15 June 2011 Abstract Background: Sperm cells extracted from testes (TESE) have poor chromatin quality and motility. Various substances are used in the laboratory to increase sperm motility and improve the ART outcomes; however, there are few research which considered improving both sperm motility and chromatin quality. Objective: The ai...

Cysteine oxidation in protamines leads to their oligomerization and contributes to sperm chromatin compaction. Here we identify the Drosophila thioredoxin Deadhead (DHD) as the factor responsible for the reduction of intermolecular disulfide bonds in protamines and their eviction from sperm during fertilization. Protamine chaperone TAP/p32 dissociates DNA-protamine complexes in vitro only when ...

Background Flow cytometry (FCM) has been extensively used to study mammalian sperm in the areas of clinical andrology and reproductive toxicology. FCM provides a powerful advantage over microscopy technique in terms of rapid accurate and reproducible technology for the quantification of various cell characteristics including chromatin status. During spermiogenesis histones are replaced by prota...