Objective: This study was performed to evaluate the correlation of hyaluronic acid binding assay (HBA) with conventional semen parameters, lipid peroxidation (LPO), intracellular reactive oxygen species (ROS), DNA fragmentation (DF), DNA maturity and mitochondrial membrane potential (MMP) level in human spermatozoa.
Methods: The semen samples were obtained from 98 patients. The seminal plasma was separated for the study of LPO, and the pellet was employed for evaluation of intracellular ROS, DF, nuclear maturity (sperm chromatin structure assay) and MMP through flowcytometry.
Results: The correlation and strength of HBA with respect to the studied parameters were estimated by the Pearson coefficient and multiple liner regression tests. While HBA indicated a positive correlation with progressive motility (β-coefficients = 0.449, p < 0.05) and normal morphology (β-coefficients = 2.722, p < 0.01), it had only negative relationship with DNA integrity (high DNA stain ability; β-coefficients = -0.517, p < 0.05). HBA also did not show any important correlation with other conventional and intracellular sperm parameters.
Conclusions: The HBA is sensitive to morphological integrity, high progressive motility and nuclear maturation. Nonetheless, HBA is not a reliable test for prediction of sperm intracellular ROS, DF and MMP risks and healthy spermatozoa selection.
© 2015 S. Karger AG, Basel.