The effect of discontinuous Percoll gradient centrifugation on sperm morphology and nuclear DNA normality.

To determine the improvement of sperm morphology and sperm nuclear DNA normality after discontinuous Percoll gradients preparation, sperm morphology and sperm nuclear DNA normality from 157 semen samples from 45 donors and 63 male partners of infertile couples were assessed before and after discontinuous Percoll gradients preparation. In semen samples, about 67.5 per cent of the nuclei exhibited green acridine orange fluorescence. The percentage of normal sperm morphology, percentage of progressive motility, and percentage of green-fluorescing sperm were significantly better after this sperm preparation. Therefore, this sperm preparation technique is a convenient and efficient method to select progressive motile, normal morphological and normal nuclear DNA sperm for assisted conceptive technology.