Effects of ambient temperature and 37 °C on biological characteristics of processed oligoasthenoteratozoospermic spermatozoa

Abstract

Objective: To assess the biological characteristics of human spermatozoa at room temperature (RT, 25 °C) and 37 °C at different time intervals (0, 0.5, 2, and 24 h) post liquefaction.
Methods: Twenty oligoasthenoteratozoospermic samples after liquefaction were incubated at 37 °C or RT. Incubation was performed at 4 interval times of 0 (after liquefaction), 0.5, 2, and 24 h. The samples were evaluated for sperm parameters, DNA fragmentation, acrosome reaction, mitochondrial integrity, and lipid peroxidation, at each time interval.
Results: After 0.5 h of incubation at RT and 37 °C, there were slight variations in sperm viability, normal morphology and DNA fragmentation. Similarly, mitochondrial integrity, acrosome reaction and lipid peroxidation exhibited slight differences following incubation at 0.5 h at both RT and 37 °C. In addition, the assessed parameters were mostly damaged at 24 h of incubation. The results confirmed that incubation at 37 °C was better than RT in terms of parameters and sperm functional tests, but the difference was not significant.
Conclusions: Incubation of oligoasthenoteratozoospermic samples should be done within 0.5 h to minimize the destructive effects of prolonged incubation time (e.g. 24 h) on general and specific sperm parameters. The findings declared that incubation temperature of 37 °C is safer than RT on the biological characteristics of oligoasthenoteratozoospermic processed spermatozoa.

Keywords

Acrosome reaction / DNA fragmentation / Incubation time / Mitochondrial membrane potential / Spermatozoa / Oligoasthenoteratozoospermic

Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

Acknowledgement

The authors wish to express their gratitude to the Yazd Reproductive Science Institute's team.

Funding

The study received no extramural funding.

Data availability statement

All the data is contained within the article and the supplementary materials.

Authors’ contributions

Mohammad Ali Khalili and Sajjad Shahmohammadi performed the research, data collection and analysis, manuscript drafting and approved it. Fatemeh Dehghanpour performed the research, manuscript revising and approved it. Moones Vasiee contributed to the development and preparation of this manuscript. Ali Nabi carried out interpretation of the data, revising and approved the manuscript.

Publisher’s Note

The Publisher of the Journal remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

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