The clinical significance of sperm-zona pellucida binding

Abstract

The development of homologous functional bio-assay for sperm quality assessment has been a focal point of reproductive biologists; in order to provide a scientific based diagnosis in cases of fertilization failure. The availability of oocytes still remains an important limiting factor for laboratories to embark on the methodology of the assay. The use of zonae pellucidae, derived from post mortem and different in vitro fertilization oocytes, enhanced to availability of zonae. Sperm-zona binding has been illustrated to be an essential requisite during human fertilization and can be measured under hemizona assay as well intact zona pellucida conditions. The sensitivity and specificity of sperm-zona binding results indicated the assay to be positively and significantly correlated with in vitro fertilization outcome. Furthermore, a highly significant correlation were illustrated to exist between the normal sperm morphology, hyperactivation, sperm creatine kinase activity and the zona binding capacity of a given sperm sample. It was concluded that andrology testing remains an ever-growing component in the work-up of the infertile couple. We enter the next millennium with many questions that remain to be answered by the hand of efficacious screening techniques and a new formidable therapy in intra cellular sperm injection.