Sperm DNA damage has a negative effect on early embryonic development following in vitro fertilization

Abstract

Sperm DNA damage is recognized as an important biomarker of male infertility. To investigate this, sperm DNA damage was assessed by the sperm chromatin dispersion (SCD) test in semen and motile spermatozoa harvested by combined density gradient centrifugation (DGC) and swim-up in 161 couples undergoing in vitro fertilization (IVF). Semen analysis and sperm DNA damage results were compared between couples who did or did not achieve pregnancy. The sperm DNA damage level was significantly different between the two groups (P < 0.05) and was negatively correlated with IVF outcomes. Logistic regression analysis confirmed that it was an independent predictor for achieving clinical pregnancy. The effects of different levels of sperm DNA damage on IVF outcomes were also compared. There were significant differences in day 3 embryo quality, blastocyst formation rate, and implantation and pregnancy rates (P < 0.05), but not in the basic fertilization rate between the two groups. Thus, sperm DNA damage as measured by the SCD appears useful for predicting the clinical pregnancy rate following IVF.

Lifestyle and demographic factors associated with human semen quality and sperm function

“…This is consistent with the results of a recent study, which showed that paternal age had no impact on fertilization rate in an IVF program (Wu et al 2015). However, since sperm DFI has been reported to be a good predictor for embryo quality (Tandara et al 2014;Zheng et al 2018), our result further indicated that sperm of aged men may still retain the ability to fertilize the oocyte but are diminished in ability to support the subsequent embryo development.…”

“…Although the traditional semen parameters were helpful to assess the ability of spermatogenesis and sperm maturation, the discriminative power of traditional SA is often considered to be insufficient (Oehninger et al 2014;Zhu et al 2016). DFI were considered to be a good predictor for pregnancy and miscarriage (Simon et al 2017;Zheng et al 2018); The AR test is helpful to estimate the sperm fertilization ability; and sperm vitality is a good test to exam the sperm viability (World Health Organization 2010).…”

Diagnostics of DNA fragmentation in human spermatozoa: Are sperm chromatin structure analysis and sperm chromatin dispersion tests (SCD‐HaloSpermG2 ® ) comparable?

“…Moreover, conflicting results have been presented in the literature regarding the relationship of DNA fragmentation measured by either technique and the various end‐points measured: fertilisation, blastocyst rate, early pregnancy diagnosis, birth rate or the possible complications that sometimes occur (abortion, miscarriage, etc). Some studies praise the SCSA for their prognostic value (Evenson, ; Evenson et al, ) while others do the same for the SCD (Comhaire, Messiaen, & Decleer, ; Fernández, Cajigal, López‐Fernández, & Gosálvez, ; Pregl Breznik, Kovačič, & Vlaisavljević, ; Zheng et al, ). Caution has been recommended when considering prognosis after IVF or ICSI using solely DNA fragmentation (Anifandis et al, ; Cissen et al, ; Erenpreiss, Spano, Erenpreisa, Bungum, & Giwercman, ; Zhang et al, ) particularly when colloid gradients are used since other methods for sperm selection are more valuable, as swim‐up (Zandieh et al, ).…”

Sperm enrichment from poor semen samples by double density gradient centrifugation in combination with swim-up for IVF cycles

“…It has been shown that sperm with a high level of DFI negatively correlated with the outcomes of IVF-ET 18,23 . However, the findings from other studies suggested that DFI was not able to predict the outcomes of IVF [24][25][26] .…”

“…However, studies correlating the mechanical stress of sperm with embryo development are lacking. Although it has been demonstrated that sperm processing by DGC and SU is effective at reducing sperm with DNA damage, which is thought to definitely adversely affect early embryo development, it remains elusive whether a second DGC will introduce new damage to sperm, thereby finally impairing embryo development 17,18 .…”