Filtering capacity of bovine cervical mucus towards abnormal forms of human-ejaculated spermatozoa

The filtration capacity of bovine cervical mucus (BCM), fresh bovine cervical mucus (FBCM) or frozen and thawed bovine mucus (BCMF) was studied, using human-ejaculated spermatozoa in comparison with the properties of human cervical mucus (HCM). Thirty semen specimens of good quality were used in cervical mucus (CM) penetrations, using capillary tubes containing CM of 30 HCM, 77 FBCM and 77 BCMF samples. Spermiocytograms were carried out on semen and cervical mucus at 1st and 3rd centimeter of the capillary tube after one hour of incubation. Smears were stained by Papanicolaou and the patterns of seven forms of sperm cells (normal, tapering, macrocephals, microcephals, pinhead, neck pathology and amorphous cells) were counted on a total of 100 cells in each slide. A clear, highly significant (P less than 0.0001) selection of cells penetrating the CM has been shown, preventing certain abnormal forms from penetrating the CM (macrocephals, neck pathology and amorphous cells) and enabling good penetration of normal sperm forms and moderate penetration of tapering, microcephals and pinhead cells. On the average, a specimen with normal sperm forms of 72% showed a spermiocytogram of 90% normal forms at the 3rd centimeter of migration. The same patterns of filtration were recorded in all the three sources of CM. It is suggested that BCM be used as a filter towards abnormal sperm forms in a highly teratozoospermic ejaculate in order to improve its quality for artificial inseminations.