Improvement of Sperm Quality in Hyperviscous Semen following DNase I Treatment.

Effrosyni Nosi,Konstantinos Makarounis,Panagiotis Venieratos,Vasilios Kapetanios,Vassilis Tsilivakos,Christodoulos Papanikopoulos,Marighoula Varla-Leftherioti,Anastasia Konstantinidou,Angelos D Gritzapis,Georgios Georgoulias

doi:10.1155/2019/6325169

Abstract

Semen hyperviscosity impairs sperm motility and can lead to male infertility. This prospective study aimed at assessing the ability of exogenous DNase in improving sperm quality, taking into consideration that DNase has been found in the seminal plasma of several species and that neutrophils release chromatin in order to trap bacteria. A total of seventy-seven semen samples with high seminal viscosity (HSV) as the study group and sixty-two semen samples with normal seminal viscosity (NSV) as the control group were compared in this analysis. These semen samples were divided into three groups of receiving treatment (a) with DNase I at 37°C for 15 min, (b) by density gradient centrifugation, and (c) with a combination of the above two methods. Following a fifteen-minute treatment of hyperviscous semen, the motility of spermatozoa in 83% of semen samples increased to a statistically significant degree. On the contrary, DNase treatment of semen with normal viscosity had no such effects. The above treatment was also accompanied by a significant increase in the percentage of normal spermatozoa, resulting in a major decrease of the teratozoospermia index. Comparison between semen samples that underwent density gradient centrifugation following DNase I treatment, to those collected after density gradient treatment alone, showed that in the first case the results were more spectacular. The evaluation of each preparation in terms of yield (% total progressively motile sperm count after treatment in relation to the initial total sperm count) revealed that the combined approach resulted in 29.8% vs. 18.5% with density treatment alone (p=0.0121). DNase I treatment results in an improvement of sperm motility and morphology and could be beneficial to men with hyperviscous semen in assisted reproduction protocols.

Highlights

Studies have documented that semen hyperviscosity (SHV) occurs in 12–29% of ejaculates [1]
Leukocytes are a major source of Reactive Oxygen Species (ROS) [16, 17] and the vectors of retroviruses in semen [18], while their presence has been associated with decreased probability of conception as well as a lower success rate of intrauterine insemination (IUI) and of conventional IVF [17]
Seventy-seven semen samples with high seminal viscosity (HSV) were obtained as the study group and sixty-two semen samples normal with normal seminal viscosity (NSV) were obtained as the control group, stratified as follows

Summary

Introduction

Studies have documented that semen hyperviscosity (SHV) occurs in 12–29% of ejaculates [1]. ROS during the transport of sperm through the male genital tract [8, 9], indications of sperm damage during laboratory handling and storage [10], and indications of additional production of ROS “automatically” after ejaculation, at least in some cases of seminal hyperviscosity [8]. This condition is mostly associated with male accessory sexual gland infection [11, 12] and varicocele [13], even though the pathophysiology is still not completely understood. SHV is correlated with the composition of seminal microbiota and the higher prevalence of pathogenic bacteria [19]

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Conclusion