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Chapter 40 - Measurement of DNA fragmentation in human spermatozoa

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 May 2010

By
Denny Sakkas
Edited by
Larry I. Lipshultz ,
Stuart S. Howards  and
Craig S. Niederberger
Larry I. Lipshultz
Affiliation:
Baylor College of Medicine
Stuart S. Howards
Affiliation:
University of Virginia
Craig S. Niederberger
Affiliation:
University of Illinois, Chicago
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Summary

This chapter examines the main aspects of testing sperm DNA fragmentation, and the impact of these tests on predicting the fertility status of males. The TUNEL assay has been adopted as a measure of sperm DNA integrity for two reasons. First, the ease with which available TUNEL kits measure DNA fragmentation allows for a simple assessment of sperm to be made on the basis of whether DNA strand breaks are present. Second, the assumption has been made in numerous studies that TUNEL measurement of sperm is indicative of apoptosis. The decreased predictive power of the sperm chromatin structure assay (SCSA) analysis in in-vitro fertilization (IVF) and intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI) may be due to the fact that a selected sperm population is used in these techniques. The general deduction is that SCSA, TUNEL, and sperm chromatin dispersion (SCD) show similar predictive values for DNA fragmentation.

Keywords

human fertilitymicroscopic examinationsemen analysissperm viabilitysperm morphologysperm motility
Type
Chapter
Information
Infertility in the Male , pp. 633 - 641
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2009

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