Ultrastructural studies in Morphological assessment of human spermatozoa

Abstract

The fine morphology of the regional structure of ejaculated spermatozoa which was observed by light microscope, scanning electron microscope and transmission electron microscope was the basis for the classification of various morphological characteristics. A quantitative analysis of the frequencies of these morphological characteristics in the fertile and suspected infertile populations was conducted. A discriminant analysis of these data revealed that 6 morphological characteristics out of 30 examined by light microscope, 9 out of 42 examined by scanning electron microscope and 8 out of 35 examined by transmission electron microscope were discriminatory. In addition, the discriminant analysis enabled obtaining a morphological score for each semen sample which was calculated from the weights of the different discriminatory characteristics for the 3 microscopic techniques. It was possible to separate the fertile from the infertile population using these morphological scores. The fertile man obtained positive scores while the suspected infertile men obtained negative scores. The practical use of the different morphological scores as diagnostic tools for male infertility clinics is discussed.

Morphological factors influencing the penetration of human sperm into cervical mucus in vitro

“…In these semen samples the most frequent abnormalities encountered were amorphous heads, cytoplasmic remnant, and bent tails. The same abnormalities were also observed frequently in the semen of infertile men in previous studies (Bartoov et al 1982;Escalier et al 1984). Our results demonstrate that the increased frequency of normal forms in cervical mucus, reflecting the efficiency of morphological selection, is correlated with the proportion of abnormal sperm in semen.…”

Structural heterogeneity of the axonemes of respiratory cilia and sperm flagella in normal men.

“…A significantly greater number of sperm tail axonemes had an abnormal number of microtubule doublets compared with the cilia (P < 0.02). This was observed in 8:10 of the semen samples and is a further demonstration of the morphological heterogeneity of human sperm in comparison with other species (26,27). When abnormalities in the microtubule doublets were seen in a semen sample, the number of doublets observed was not consistently higher or lower than the expected number of nine.…”

Psychological aspects of male infertility

“…The experimental group consisted of 107 male patients (average age M = 32 years, SD = 5) who attended the fertility laboratory at Bar-Ilan University for semen analysis based on routine light microscope indices and pathology revealed by TEM and SEM electronmicroscopes (Bartoov, Eltes, Langsam, Snyder & Fisher, 1982). The men came to this laboratory after their previous routine laboratory tests, done elsewhere, were inconclusive.…”