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Hum. Reprod. Advance Access originally published online on December 20, 2008
Human Reproduction 2009 24(4):775-781; doi:10.1093/humrep/den456
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© The Author 2008. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org

Age- and substrain-dependent sperm abnormalities in BALB/c mice and functional assessment of abnormal sperm by ICSI

Hiroshi Ohta1, Yuko Sakaide and Teruhiko Wakayama

Laboratory for Genomic Reprogramming, Center for Developmental Biology, RIKEN, 2-2-3 Minatojima-minamimachi, Chuo-ku, Kobe 650-0047, Japan

1 Correspondence address. Tel: +81-78-306-3049; Fax: +81-78-306-3095; E-mail: ohta{at}cdb.riken.jp

BACKGROUND: Male BALB/c mice produce a high proportion of morphologically abnormal sperm. Although the BALB/c male may be a useful model of human male infertility, it remains unclear whether the sperm abnormality rate (SAR) is affected by age or the BALB/c substrain.

METHODS: SARs (head shape) were assessed in three BALB/c substrains (A, AnN, ByJ) at 7 and 9 weeks and 6–10 months of age (c.100 sperm/male). The functional ability of abnormal sperm produced from 7-week-old and 6–10-month-old males was determined in BALB/c AnN mice by ICSI.

RESULTS: The SAR (quasi-normal plus abnormal sperm) was lower in BALB/c A than in the other two strains (P < 0.05). Further, the SARs of BALB/c AnN and ByJ strains at 7 weeks old were high and decreased rapidly by 9 weeks, suggesting that early spermatogenesis (i.e. the first wave of spermatogenesis) produced low-quality sperm. ICSI experiments indicated that 2-cell stage embryos which developed from morphologically abnormal sperm from both the first wave of spermatogenesis and the older mice (6–10 months) were similar to those from morphologically normal sperm in terms of producing progeny, although the number of 2-cell embryos was slightly lower (P < 0.05, {chi}2 test) than with normal sperm.

CONCLUSIONS: Although the SARs of BALB/c mice are affected by both age and substrain, the embryos that developed from morphologically abnormal sperm have normal genetic potential in terms of production of progeny.

Key words: BALB/c/ICSI/morphology/sperm/tetrazoospermia

Submitted on June 3, 2008; resubmitted on October 15, 2008; accepted on November 19, 2008.


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