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Zeta method: A noninvasive method based on membrane charge for selecting spermatozoa expressing high level of phospholipaseCζ
Author(s) -
Khakpour Shima,
Sadeghi Elham,
Tavalaee Marziyeh,
Bahadorani Mehrnoosh,
NasrEsfahani Mohammad H.
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
andrologia
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.633
H-Index - 59
eISSN - 1439-0272
pISSN - 0303-4569
DOI - 10.1111/and.13249
Subject(s) - sperm , andrology , intracytoplasmic sperm injection , fertilisation , population , oocyte activation , zeta potential , biology , oocyte , chemistry , in vitro fertilisation , reproductive technology , microbiology and biotechnology , cryopreservation , embryo , medicine , materials science , nanotechnology , environmental health , nanoparticle
Intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI) is a technique developed to help attain successful fertilisation for couples with severe male factor. However, a small percentage of couples confront low or failed fertilisation, mainly due to failed oocyte activation. Several studies have introduced phospholipase Cζ (PLCζ) as the main sperm factor inducing oocyte activation and thereby has the potential to act as a biomarker for the prediction of ICSI fertilisation outcome. On the other hand, researchers have focused on novel sperm selection procedures based on cellular characteristics of spermatozoa such as surface electrical charge (Zeta potential) to isolate normal sperm subpopulation with intact chromatin. Therefore, we aimed to compare PLCζ between Zeta method and routine sperm preparation procedure: density gradient centrifugation (DGC). Our results showed that number of PLCζ‐positive spermatozoa was significantly low in the Zeta method, but the intensity of PLCζ protein in such spermatozoa was significantly higher than DGC procedure. Therefore, the combination of DGC with Zeta procedure may allow selecting the population of spermatozoa with a high percentage of PLCζ which may also contain a high amount of PLCζ and with intact chromatin. This sperm selection procedure can open a new approach for infertile men with previously failed fertilisation.