Immune Infertility Should Be Positively Diagnosed Using an Accurate Method by Monitoring the Level of Anti-ACTL7a Antibody

Sci Rep. 2016 Mar 9:6:22844. doi: 10.1038/srep22844.

Abstract

Infertility is currently a major public health problem. Anti-sperm antibodies (ASAs) markedly reduce sperm quality, which can subsequently lead to male and/or female infertility. The accurate detection of ASAs derived from specific spermatozoa is, therefore, clinically useful. We have focused on the spermatozoa-specific expression protein ACTL7a for many years and have developed an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) to detect the concentration of anti-ACTL7a antibodies in fertile sera (n = 267) and infertile sera (n = 193). Infertile sera were collected from the positive sera of tray agglutination tests (TAT), which is a routine ASA screening methodology. We found that the concentration of anti-ACTL7a antibodies was significantly higher in the infertile sera (than in the fertile sera, P < 0.0001) and much higher in the TAT ≥ 16 infertile sera. The ELISA was much better for male sera detection (AUC = 0.9899). If we set the standard at a strongly positive value (calculated by ROC curve), the positive predictive value of the antibody detection reached 100 percent, with a false positive rate of zero. The developed ELISA method for anti-ACTL7a antibody detection is therefore sensitive, accurate, and easy to perform, making it an excellent potential tool for future clinical use.

Publication types

  • Evaluation Study
  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Actins / immunology*
  • Adult
  • Autoantibodies / blood*
  • Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assay / methods*
  • Female
  • Humans
  • Infertility / diagnosis*
  • Male
  • Middle Aged
  • Predictive Value of Tests
  • Sensitivity and Specificity
  • Serologic Tests / methods*
  • Young Adult

Substances

  • ACTL7A protein, human
  • Actins
  • Autoantibodies