Penetration of the zona pellucida of nonliving human oocytes by human spermatozoa in vitro.

In an in vitro assay human spermatozoa penetrated the zona pellucida of 38.8% of 773 human oocytes recovered from the ovaries of cadavers. Zona penetration was not observed until 8 hours had elapsed. Oocytes examined with the electron microscope were surrounded mainly by sperm with intact acrosomes, but contained sperm in the zona and perivitelline space which had lost the outer acrosomal membrane and acrosomal contents. Sperm entry into the ooplasm was never observed. Spermatozoa from 11 of 16 patients with suspected infertility penetrated the zona, although the penetration rate was lower than that with sperm from fertile donors (12.9% versus 46.4%). When oocytes were incubated with mixed suspensions containing equal numbers of motile sperm from donors and patients, the donor sperm (identified by a fluorescent label) penetrated 50.0% and the patient sperm only 12.7%. These data suggest that human sperm penetrate the zona pellucida of nonliving human oocytes and mature living ova in a similar manner. This method is a potential diagnostic and investigative tool which avoids the ethical and technical problems associated with human in vitro fertilization.