Background: Introduction assessment of sperm functional tests along with routine semen analysis may provide further information in the etiology of varicocele in different subpopulations. Therefore, in this study, in addition to assessment of sperm chromatin integrity, we aimed to assess the total acrosin activity which has proven to have major role during in vitro and natural fertilization in v...

The sequential generation of large-scale DNA fragments followed by internucleosomal chromatin fragmentation is a biochemical hallmark of apoptosis. One of the nucleases primarily responsible for genomic DNA fragmentation during apoptosis is called DNA Fragmentation Factor 40 (DFF40) or Caspase-activated DNase (CAD). DFF40/CAD is a magnesium-dependent endonuclease specific for double stranded DN...

Background: Chlamydia Trachomatis (CT) is an obligate intracellular bacteria, that requires living cells to replicate itself and is responsible for lower urinary tract disease in men and women. It can cause urethritis, epididymitis, orchitis and complications such as chronic prostatitis in men. Chlamydia infections may also directly affect male fertility by damaging the sperm, because sperm par...

we have previously shown that the proliferative response of t cells to antigenic or mitogenic stimulus decreased with age and that caloric resection (cr) attenuated the age-related decline in proliferation and il-2 expression. because activation-induced apoptosis is known to regulate cell proliferation and eliminate the high number of activated cells during an immune response, it was of interes...

OBJECTIVE To examine sperm DNA fragmentation in semen used for assisted reproduction procedures to establish this factor's prognostic role in fertilization rate, embryo development, pregnancy rate, and outcome. DESIGN Prospective study. SETTING Department of Medicine and Biology of Reproduction of the Edouard Herriot Hospital in Lyon, France. PATIENT(S) 322 couples, divided into 88 cycles...

BACKGROUND/AIMS A large proportion of men with normal sperm results as analyzed using conventional techniques have fragmented DNA in their spermatozoa. We performed a prospective study to examine the incidence of DNA fragmentation in sperm in cases of couples with previously unexplained infertility and treated with intrauterine insemination. We evaluated whether there was any predictive value o...

OBJECTIVE To measure sperm DNA integrity values before and after varicocelectomy in patients with elevated preoperative levels of sperm DNA fragmentation. DESIGN Retrospective. SETTING Private urology clinic. PATIENT(S) Eleven patients with grade 1, 2, or 3 varicocele. INTERVENTION(S) Varicocelectomy. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURE(S) Sperm DNA fragmentation values were assessed before and afte...

BACKGROUND Radiocontrast-induced nephropathy is a clinically important complication of invasive cardiological procedures. It has been associated with DNA fragmentation of renal tubular cells, which is a hallmark feature of programmed cell death (apoptosis). We investigated the mechanism of this DNA fragmentation in an in vitro model of radiocontrast cytotoxicity on renal epithelial cells. MET...