Comparion of sperm PLCζ expression and chromatin structure between infertile men with globozoospermia and fertile individuals

Background: Globozoospermia, is a severe tetatozoosperrmia that sperms have a round head and without acrosome. Such sperms cannot penetrate to oocyte, so failure in fertilization occure. Assisted reproduction techniques mainly intra cytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI), can be used to achieve oocyte fertilization and pregnancy. However, because of inability of sperm to activate oocyte, fertilization rate is low. Sevral studies have demonstrated that the inability of round headed spermatozoa in oocyte activation after ICSI is because of deficiency or absence of sperm factors involved in oocyte activation (SOAF) and phospholipase C zeta (PLCζ) as major sperm factor involved in this phenomenon is introduced. So in this study, we assessed sperm PLCζ expression and chromatin structure between infertile men with globozoospermia and fertile individuals.Methods: Semen samples were collected from 20 fertile and 20 infertile men with globozoospermia. Expression of PLCζ was assessed by Real Time PCR, also sperm DNA fragmentation and protamine deficiency were evaluated by TUNEL (Transferase-mediated deoxynucleotidyl dUTP nick end labeling) and CMA3 (Chromomycin A3) techniques, respectively.Result: The result of this study indicates that expression of PLCζ was significantly lower in infertile men with globozoospermia compared to fertile men (P≤0.05). In addition, DNA damage and sperm protamine deficiency in infertile men with globozoospermia were significantly higher than fertile men (P≤0.05).Conclusion: Expression of PLCζ, protamine content, and DNA fragmentation were deficient in spermatozoa of infertile men with globozoospermia. Therefore, in addition to low quality of semen in these individuals, sperm chromatin structure and expression of some protein like PLCζ were disrupted during spermiogenesis.

کلیدواژه ها:

Chromatin ، PLCζ ، Globozoospermia ، Infertility