The Roleof Antisperm Autoantibodies and Cell-mediated Autoimmunity inthe Pathogenesis of Male Infertility

Overview

Objective:
To test the hypothesis of relationship between sperm pathology and elevated humoraland/or cell-mediated antisperm autoimmunity in male partners from infertile couples.Design: Analytic study.Setting: Department of Immunobiology, Institute for the Care of Mother and Child, Prague.Methods: Sperm samples were evaluated according to WHO rules. Sperm-bound antisperm autoantibodies (ASA) were determined by SpermMar Test (FertiPro N. V., Sint-Martens-Latem, Belgium). For evaluation of cell-mediated antisperm autoimmunity (CMAA) the authors used their ownmodification of migration-inhibition test (Dimitrov et al., J. Immunol. Methods 154: 147, 1992).Results: The pool of men was divided into groups according to the result of sperm examination:normozoospermia (740 men), asthenozoospermia (244), teratozoospermia (191), oligoasthenozoospermia levis (61), oligoasthenozoospermia gravis (29), oligoteratozoospermia (82), and azoospermia (54). Subgroup of fertile men (32) consisted of normozoospermic men – fathers of childyounger than 3 years. Percentage of sperm-bound ASA-positive samples was significantly higherin asthenozoospermia in comparison with normozoospermia in both IgA (20.8% versus 10.6%) andIgG classes (13.8% vs 6.8%). Positivity of CMAA was significantly more frequent in group ofasthenozoospermic (52%) than in normozoospermic (28.5%) and fertile (12.5%) men.Conclusion: Antisperm autoimunity, namely its cellediated form, appears to play a significantrole in impairment of spermiogenesis. Sperm-bound autoantibodies were found more frequentlyin asthenozoospermia, but also in some men with normozoospermia they may impair fertility.

Key words:
sperm pathology, antisperm autoantibodies, antisperm cell-mediated autoimmunity,male fertility