Immunological and morphological characterisation of nucleated cells other than sperm in semen of oligospermic donors.

Nucleated cells other than sperm (NCOS) were obtained from semen samples of oligospermic donors. The cells, after separation from sperm, were studied by immunological and morphological techniques including electron microscopy (EM). Using an indirect immunofluorescence (IIF) test, more than 95% of the NCOS reacted with xenoantisera specific for human sperm and germ cells but showed less than 5% reactivity with monoclonal antibodies (MoAbs) directed against surface markers of different leucocyte subsets or cytokeratin. This indicated that the majority of NCOS were germ cells in origin. These results were concordant to those obtained by EM which showed the presence of germ cells at various stages of differentiation. Our data therefore show that the application of immunological techniques could help and may replace laborious EM in the identification of the different cell types among NCOS. Also, the results emphasize that germ cells and not leucocytes appear to be the major cell type among NCOS, a concept which could have therapeutic and biological implications.