Correlation of semen characteristics with acrosin, hyaluronidase, tubulin, dynein, and actin of spermatozoa.

The distribution of acrosin (AC), hyaluronidase (HY), tubulin (TU), dynein (DY), and actin (ACT) has been examined by indirect immunofluorescent measurement in sperm preparations from infertile patients to investigate the sperm fertilizing ability. The fluorescence scores were determined by the chromatically positive rates of each antibodies. In cases in which semen showed lower concentration (oligozoospermia and oligoasthenozoospermia), the scores of these proteins were all significantly lower than those of normozoospermia. In cases in which semen showed lower motility (asthenozoospermia and oligoasthenozoospermia), the scores of AC, HY, TU, and ACT were significantly less. In semen that contained numerous morphologically abnormal spermatozoa, TU and ACT exhibited a significant reduction. These results indicate that sperm productibility may be involved in all proteins and that less-motile and morphologically abnormal spermatozoa are involved in structural or functional disorder of the proteins constituting the tail. The normality of these fluorescence scores showed a good correlation with pregnancy rate, but semen analysis did not show any correlation with pregnancy rate. It would appear that this immunofluorescent procedure has an advantage over semen analysis and yields useful information on sperm fertilizing ability.