Can the immunobead assay for detecting sperm antibodies in fresh samples be reproduced in cryopreserved/thawed human spermatozoa?

Problem: To evaluate the reproducibility of the Immunobead Assay (IBA) on sperm samples before and after cryopreservation.

Method: Sperm samples (fresh and post-thaw) from known antibody negative donors (N = 20) were evaluated for percent immunobead binding by IBA following incubation with known antibody-positive serum.

Results: In both fresh and thawed negative samples, the mean sperm head binding was 0.5% +/- 0.5, the mean sperm tail binding was 2.0% +/- 2.0 and the mean sperm head-tail binding was 3.0% +/- 2.0 for IgG, IgA and IgM type antibodies, respectively. The same samples exposed to positive sera showed 40.0% +/- 10.0 mean head binding, 7.0% +/- 8.0 mean tail binding and 47.0% +/- 11.0 mean head-tail binding.

Conclusions: IBA is highly reproducible for detecting sperm antibodies in both fresh and cryopreserved/thawed samples of human spermatozoa.