Macroscopic sperm agglutination in gelatin, sperm immobilization and tanned red cell hemagglutination tests could detect antispermatozoal antibodies respectively in 41%, 37%, and 23% sera of 35 leprosy patients, including 5 female cases. Interestingly, all of the above tests were positive in one serum from a female patient with borderline leprosy. Sperm antibodies were detected in both lepromat...

background: ubiquitin, an 8.5 kda peptide that marks other proteins for proteasomal degradation, tags defective sperm dur­ing epididymal passage. thus, sperm ubiquitination is a universal marker for sperm defects and can be used as a sperm func­tion test. the objective of the present study was to examine the relationships between sperm ubiquiti­nation and clinical se­men parameters, using simpl...

The Franklin and Dukes (FD) test is used as a screening test for the determination of sperm-agglutinating antibodies and as a proof of therapeutic effects in cases of infertility, but various parameters of the FD test remain unclear and the application of different techniques has revealed highly different results. To test the statistical evidence for the FD technique, conditions regarded as opt...

BACKGROUND Sperm-oocyte fusion is a critical step in fertilization, which requires a series of proteins from both spermatozoa and oocyte to mediate membrane adhesion and subsequent fusion. A rat spermatozoa membrane protein is endoplasmic reticulum protein 29 (ERp29), which significantly increases on the sperm surface as well as in the cytoplasm of epididymal epithelia from caput to cauda as th...

We have successfully applied SDS (sodium dodecyl sulfate) gel/protein blot radioimmunobinding method to identify the molecular size of sperm antigens that elicit antisperm antibodies from patients with unexplained infertility. Following the transfer of renatured proteins from SDS gel of human sperm extract onto nitrocellulose strips, the radioimmunobinding was performed by incubating the strips...

OBJECTIVE To detect the presence of antibodies to the proacrosin/acrosin system and to evaluate their effect on the sperm acrosomal protein activities in women consulting for infertility. DESIGN Retrospective study. SETTING Basic research laboratory. PATIENT(S) Recombinant proteins derived from human proacrosin (Rec-40, Rec-30, Rec-20, Rec-10) and recombinant human zona pellucida (ZP) gly...

BACKGROUND The human sperm-associated antigen 9 (hSPAG9) is of special interest attributing to the findings indicating that SPAG9 is an acrosomal molecule. SPAG9 is not only restricted to acrosomal compartment but also persists in equatorial segment post-acrosome reaction, which is a key location in sperm-egg interaction. METHODS AND RESULTS Immunogenicity studies in macaques were carried out...

The presence of antiidiotypic antibodies (ab-2) to sperm was investigated in the sera of fertile, infertile, and virgin women using sperm-specific anti-FA-1 monoclonal antibody Fab'.ab-2 were detected in 71% (17/24) of sera from fertile women and in none (0/12) of the sera from virgin females by the enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay, Western blot procedure, and immunoprecipitation procedure. Se...

The presence of antiidiotypic antibodies (ab-2) to sperm was investigated in the sera of fertile, infertile, and virgin women using sperm-specific anti-FA-1 monoclonal antibody Fab'. ab-2 were detected in 71% (17 /24) of sera from fertile women and in none (0/12) of the sera from virgin females by the enzymelinked immunosorbent assay, Western blot procedure, and immunoprecipitation procedure. S...