ANALYSIS OF HUMAN SPERM MEMBRANE-ANTIGENS REACTING WITH SERA FROM ANTISPERM ANTIBODY-POSITIVE AND NEGATIVE PATIENTS BY WESTERN BLOTTING

Immunological infertility is thought to be caused by the binding of an tibodies to 'fertility-related' antigen(s) on the sperm membrane. We c ompared antibody profiles in sera from 20 ASA(+) and ASA(-) men, using a sperm membrane extract as an antigen. Antigens were separated by SD S-PAGE under reducing conditions. The patients were classed as ASA(+) by the MAR (> 50%), d-IBT (> 20%) and TAT (> 1:64). The results showed that immunoreactive bands in both the.ASA(+) and ASA(-) groups were h eterogenous and included bands covering the whole molecular weight ran ge. Statistical analysis showed significantly more patients in the ASA (+) group having immunoreactive bands at molecular weights of 32 Kd (P = 0.006) and 79 Kd (P = 0.02) when compared to the ASA(-) group. In t he ASA(-) group significantly more patients had reactive bands at 81 K d (P=0.01) when compared to the ASA(+) group. The 32 Kd antigen reacte d only with sera from ASA(+) patients. We conclude that differences ex ist between the ASA(+) and ASA(-) groups when this extraction method i s used and that the isolation and purification of the 32 Kd protein ma y justify further investigation.