Background: Antioxidants that used for the infertility treatment cannot have their complete effectiveness, because of their instability in the culture medium.
Significance: One of the most advances, in the drug delivery systems, is nanoliposomes-loaded, as biodegradable and bioavailable carriers. Hormonal and antioxidant agents encapsulating inside the nanoliposomes were used, to increase the effectiveness of antioxidants in the sperm culture medium.
Materials: Semen sample from 15 asthenospermia were divided into 10 equal parts. After preparation, the sperms were incubated with free form of drugs and nanocarriers contained resveratrol, catalase, resveratrol-catalase and testosterone for 45 min. All sperm parameters, sperm DNA and gene expressions were evaluated before and after freezing.
Results: Before freezing, all nanocarriers and free testosterone showed higher sperm motility compared to free drugs (p=.000). Free Testosterone and free resveratrol-catalase had higher DNA damage compared to nanocarriers (p=.000). Before freezing, the blank nanoliposome and testosterone nanoliposomes had the lowest HSP70 gene expression respectively (p = 0.005) (p = 0.001). After freezing, a significant reduction in sperm motility was observed in the free resveratrol-catalase group (p=.003). Also, a significant increase in sperm viability was observed in the free testosterone and nanoliposomes of blank and testosterone (p > 0.05). The least DNA fragmentation was related to catalase nanoliposomes (p=.000). All nanoliposomes, especially catalase, had the highest percentage of class I morphology compared to the control group (p=.000).
Conclusions: Nanoliposomes could improve the sperm parameters and DNA integrity before and after freezing, by increasing the effectiveness of antioxidants. So, it can be recommended in the ART lab.
Keywords: Nanoliposomes; asthenospermia; catalase; controlled release; drug delivery; resveratrol; testosterone.