Seminal Plasma and Serum Afamin Levels Are Associated with Infertility in Men with Oligoasthenoteratozoospermia.

The plasma glycoprotein afamin has been previously identified as an alternative carrier protein for vitamin E in extravascular fluids such as plasma and cerebrospinal, ovarian follicular, and seminal fluids. However, to date, no study has established a relationship between afamin levels and infertility in women or men. The purposes of our study were (i) to assess the level of afamin in serum and seminal fluids in infertile men compared to healthy controls and (ii) to study the association between polymorphisms in afamin genes and male infertility.

Endometrial expression of selected genes in patients achieving pregnancy spontaneously or after ICSI and patients failing at least two ICSI cycles.

The objective of this study was to identify the endometrial gene expression profile in receptive phase, which could represent a useful prognostic tool for selecting IVF patients. Endometrial expression of 47 selected genes biopsied during the window of implantation in natural cycles was compared between patients who achieved a successful pregnancy spontaneously or after subsequent intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI) cycles and patients who did not achieve a pregnancy after at least two failed ICSI cycles. The comparative analysis showed significantly different levels of expression in 19 genes, five implicated in apoptosis (CASP8, FADD, CASP10, APAF1, ANXA4), three in immunity (LIF, SPP1, C4BPA), five in transcriptional activity (MSX1, HOXA10, MSX2, HOXA11, GATA2), two in lipid metabolism (LEPR, APOD) and four in oxidative metabolism (AOX1, ALDH1A3, GPX3, NNMT).

Not all sperm are equal: functional mitochondria characterize a subpopulation of human sperm with better fertilization potential.

Human sperm samples are very heterogeneous and include a low amount of truly functional gametes. Distinct strategies have been developed to characterize and isolate this specific subpopulation. In this study we have used fluorescence microscopy and fluorescence-activated cell sorting to determine if mitochondrial function, as assessed using mitochondrial-sensitive probes, could be employed as a criterion to obtain more functional sperm from a given ejaculate.