Department of Animal Reproduction, INIA, Avda. Puerta de Hierro, Madrid, Spain.
Unit of Reproduction, Hospital Universitario Príncipe de Asturias, Alcalá de Henares, Spain.
Sci Rep. 2018 Feb 13;8(1):2902. doi: 10.1038/s41598-018-21335-8.
The ejaculate is a heterogeneous pool of spermatozoa containing only a small physiologically adequate subpopulation for fertilization. As there is no method to isolate this subpopulation, its specific characteristics are unknown. This is one of the main reasons why we lack effective tools to identify male infertility and for the low efficiency of assisted reproductive technologies. The aim of this study was to improve ICSI outcome by sperm selection through thermotaxis. Here we show that a specific subpopulation of mouse and human spermatozoa can be selected in vitro by thermotaxis and that this subpopulation is the one that enters the fallopian tube in mice. Further, we confirm that these selected spermatozoa in mice and humans show a much higher DNA integrity and lower chromatin compaction than unselected sperm, and in mice, they give rise to more and better embryos through intracytoplasmic sperm injection, doubling the number of successful pregnancies. Collectively, our results indicate that a high quality sperm subpopulation is selected in vitro by thermotaxis and that this subpopulation is also selected in vivo within the fallopian tube possibly by thermotaxis.
精液是精子的异质池，其中只包含一小部分生理上足够用于受精的亚群。由于没有方法可以分离这个亚群，因此其特定特征尚不清楚。这就是我们缺乏有效工具来识别男性不育症和辅助生殖技术效率低下的主要原因之一。本研究旨在通过热趋性选择精子来提高 ICSI 的结果。在这里，我们证明了可以通过热趋性在体外选择特定的小鼠和人精子亚群，并且该亚群是进入小鼠输卵管的精子亚群。此外，我们证实这些在小鼠和人中选择的精子比未选择的精子具有更高的 DNA 完整性和更低的染色质紧缩，并且在小鼠中，通过胞质内精子注射产生更多更好的胚胎，使成功妊娠的数量增加了一倍。总的来说，我们的结果表明，通过热趋性可以在体外选择高质量的精子亚群，并且该亚群也可能通过热趋性在输卵管中进行体内选择。
