Extent of nuclear DNA damage in ejaculated spermatozoa impacts on blastocyst development after in vitro fertilization

Abstract

Objective To determine whether the extent of ongoing apoptotic cell death measured as the presence of DNA strand breaks in spermatozoa affects embryo development to the blastocyst stage in IVF. Design A prospective comparative study. Setting A university IVF clinic and a private IVF clinic. Patient(s) Men (n = 49) undergoing infertility treatment with IVF. Intervention(s) After density gradient centrifugation preparation, part of the sperm sample was used for infertility treatment, and the rest was fixed in paraformaldehyde. Strand breaks in DNA that are indicative of apoptosis were detected by the in situ DNA nick end labeling (TUNEL) technique. A total of 15,000 spermatozoa from each sampl..