In human sperm proteomic experiments, leukocyte and round cell proteins may contaminate the sperm proteome and affect the bioinformatic results. The main objective of this study was to identify the possible interference of these proteins, especially from leukocytes, in identification of sperm functional pathways through proteomic and bioinformatic tools. We have evaluated the sperm proteome by liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) in four groups: (1) neat semen with round cells and leukocytes ≥1 × 106/mL; (2) samples with round cells and leukocytes ≥1 × 106/mL processed by 65% density gradient centrifugation; (3) neat semen with round cells <1 × 106/mL; and (4) samples with round cells <1 × 106/mL processed by 65% density gradient centrifugation. Pure leukocyte culture was used as a control group. The difference in the conserved DEPs (common to both sperm and leukocytes) between the sperm samples with leukocytes ≥1 × 106/mL and round cells <1 × 106/mL was negligible. Comparative analysis between groups 1, 2, 3, and 4 with the control group revealed that the presence of leukocyte proteins does not significantly alter the activation z-score of the identified canonical pathways or biological functions in sperm proteome. Our experimental results demonstrate that the presence of round cell and leukocyte proteins do not affect the identification of the molecular pathways associated with human spermatozoa protein function. Hence, the use of neat frozen semen samples for proteomic studies showed no significant impact on the downstream bioinformatic analysis.
Keywords: bioinformatics; leukocytes; round cells; sperm function; sperm proteomics.