DISTURBANCES OF SPERM FLAGELLA DUE TO FAILURE OF EPIDIDYMAL MATURATION AND THEIR POSSIBLE RELATIONSHIP TO PHOSPHOLIPIDS

A recent classification of alterations of midpiece and flagellum descr ibes the phenomenon of abnormal staining behaviour of human sperm flag ella during Papanicolaou and Shorr staining. In these techniques, huma n sperm tails normally stain red; however, if epididymal function is d isturbed, the flagella appear bluish, while they are devoid of other r ecognizable defects. Such spermatozoa were shown to be immotile, the m otility disturbance being referred to as epididymal dysfunction. To de fine the physiological substrates of this descriptive phenomenon, capu t spermatozoa from 10 epididymides of five patients who had undergone orchiectomy because of prostatic cancer were investigated. These sperm atozoa showed severe motility disturbances, and almost all their flage lla stained atypically. Attempts to stimulate such spermatozoa by pent oxifylline achieved a slight improvement in motility. However, additio n of seminal plasma from fertile donors resulted in a significant impr ovement in motility, accompanied by an increase in the number of norma lly stained flagella. Even better results were achieved by incubation with liposomes made from soybean lipids, mainly phosphatidylcholine. I t is concluded that poor motility and atypical staining behaviour of h uman caput sperm tails can at least partly be related to a lack of pho spholipids in the flagellar membrane. Substitution of phospholipids ma y be a therapeutic approach in procedures using caput spermatozoa, alt hough in addition to the improvement of sperm motility, the enhancemen t of fertilizing capacity remains to be established.