There was a marker of high DNA stainability (HDS) in the detection of sperm DNA damage, which was defined as the sperm with high green stainability (HIGRN). The sperm with normal double-stranded DNA was stained green by acridine orange (AO). However, the sperm with high green fluorescence or HDS were thought of as immature sperm or the sperm with poor chromatin condensation. Some previous literature reported that the proportion of sperm with HDS increased with age, and had a certain correlation with the poor outcome of assisted reproductive technology. Recently, several articles reported that the marker of HDS decreased linearly with age, which was obviously inconsistent with that reported by the previous literature. In this case, what kind of marker is HDS? Is it worth studying? After extensively reading the literature related to HDS and flow cytometry related books and performing a series of studies related to the detection of sperm DNA damage, we believe that the establishment of HDS in the detection of sperm DNA damage has no theoretical basis and also no support of evidence-based medicine and that using HDS as a marker in the detection of sperm DNA integrity is inappropriate.
Keywords: flow cytometry; high DNA stainability; sperm DNA damage; sperm chromatin structure analysis.
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