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Updated: Jun 7, 2025
Flow Cytometric Analysis of Biomarkers for Detecting Human Sperm Functional Defects
Published on: April 21, 2022
Strong Correlation Between Double-Strand DNA Breaks and Total Sperm DNA Fragmentation in the Human Ejaculate
Jaime Gosálvez1, Stephen D Johnston2, Ahinoa Prado3
1Department of Biology, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Madrid, Spain.
Background:
Double- and single-strand DNA breaks (DSBs and SSBs, respectively) in spermatozoa, which emerge from intrinsic and extrinsic degenerative processes, are likely related to the underlying male pathology.
Aim:
To determine whether the incidence of DSBs in the human ejaculate is a consistent predictor of whole sperm DNA fragmentation (W-SDF = SSBs + DSBs).
Methods:
A correlation between the proportion of spermatozoa that showed whole W-SDF and those displaying only DSBs in DNA. Two patient cohorts were established: W-SDF ≤30% (low SDF; n = 153) and W-SDF ≥30% (high SDF; n = 222).
Results:
An increasing level of W-SDF is associated with an increased incidence of DSBs in the ejaculate. When data from both the low and high W-SDF groups were combined, a linear relationship was observed, with DSBs increasing by 0.799 units for each unit increase in W-SDF. However, when the cohorts were analyzed separately, the relationships differed. In the low SDF group, DSBs increased linearly by 0.559 units for each unit increase in W-SDF. In the high SDF group, DSBs increased exponentially by 0.602 units per unit of W-SDF. Furthermore, the data dispersion between the two variables was significantly different between the cohorts, with the high SDF group showing 0.8 times greater variability than the low SDF group.
Conclusions:
While the presence of DSBs in sperm is correlated with the W-SDF present in raw semen samples, the biological mechanisms responsible for DSBs are expressed in different proportions and/or at different levels in ejaculates with higher levels of DNA damage.
