This study aimed to evaluate the effect of a sublethal dose of gossypol (20 mg/kg BW, every other day) on sperm malformed ultrastructure of male rabbits. The experiment lasted 8 weeks. Gossypol administration exhibited: severe deteriorations in the head, connecting piece and midpiece of the sperm; significant increases in the malformed acrosomes; dramatic destructions expressed as degeneration ...

Assessment of embryo quality in order to choose the embryos that most likely result in pregnancy is the critical goal in assisted reproductive technologies (ART). The current trend in human in vitro fertilization/embryo transfer (IVF/ET) protocols is to decrease the rate of multiple pregnancies after multiple embryo transfer with maintaining the pregnancy rate at admissible levels (according to...

We report the first 16 cases of a new sperm abnormality which we call 'easily decapitated spermatozoa defect'. This was discovered during intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI) in couples with unexplained infertility. Semen analysis was normal, but minimal micromanipulation for ICSI resulted in decapitation of the spermatozoon during immobilization. For some oocytes the head and tail were inje...

A 32 year old female presented with a history of 2 miscarriages at 6 weeks of pregnancy followed by 10 years of infertility. A bilateral wedge resection for polycystic ovaries had been carried out 8 years ago and had resulted in regular periods. A post-surgical laparoscopy revealed a blocked left tube and a tortuous right tube with multiple adhesions, which were partially freed. An unsuccessful...

Previously, it was suggested a relation between the presence of apoptosis markers with cytoplasm in mammalian sperm. In this work, flow cytometry, confocal microscopy and image analysis were used to analyze the relationship between active caspase-3 and -7 and intracellular esterases expression in ejaculated or epididymal ram sperm. Sperm obtained from ejaculates from the caput, corpus, or cauda...

OBJECTIVE Melatonin, the chief secretory product of the pineal gland, regulates dynamic physiological adaptations that occur in seasonally breeding mammals as a response to changes in daylight hours. Because of the presence of melatonin in semen and the mem- brane melatonin receptor in spermatozoa, the impact of melatonin on the regulation of male infertility is still questionable. The aim of t...

We have developed a unique method for mouse transgenesis. The transposase-enhanced pronuclear microinjection (PNI) technique described herein uses the hyperactive piggyBac transposase to insert a large transgene into the mouse genome. This procedure increased transgene integration efficiency by fivefold compared with conventional PNI or intracytoplasmic sperm injection-mediated transgenesis. Ou...