Correlation between hyaluronan binding assay and TUNEL assay for sperm DNA integrity identification.

ABSTRACT

Objective: To study the correlation between the percentages of HA-unbound sperm and DNA fragmented sperm by TUNEL assay. Methods: The semen residue from semen analysis was tested by HBA and TUNEL assay. Results: The mean age of patients included in the study was 34.8 years (± 3.7 years). The proportion of HA-unbound sperm ranged from 11.3% to 24.2%, with a mean of 17.08% (± 3.24%). The range of TUNEL positive in semen samples was 2% to 11.75%, with a mean of 5.78% (± 2.28%). Pearson’s correlation between two tests was 0.848 (p<0.01). Intraobserver variation of the results of HBA ranged from 3.3% to 7.6%, with a mean of 6.23% (± 1.11%). Intraobserver variation of the results of TUNEL assay ranged from 0% to 6.9%, with a mean of 1.54% (± 2.7%). Agreement measuring of each test was determined by using intraclass correlation. The intraclass correlation coefficient of HBA and TUNEL assay were 0.970 (P<0.001) and 0.997 (P<0.001) respectively. Conclusion: As several studies have found, the binding capacity of sperm to HA is correlated with several sperm parameters. In this study, the strong correlation between the percentages of HA-unbound sperm and TUNEL positive sperm implies, furthermore, that the HA-bound sperm percentage correlates with low levels of DNA fragmentation.