The present study was undertaken to clarify the role of TEST-Yolk Buffer (TYB) as a factor for the improvement of human sperm fertility potential. We examined the effects of low temperature capacitation using TYB on sperm motility (%), motility
pattern,
normal morphology, true acrosome reaction, sperm penetration assay and human in vitro fertilization.
Comparing the TYB method and swim-up method, the sperm motility (%) of selected sperm was not significantly different, but statistically significant differences were found in curvilinear velocity, linearity, lateral head displacement, normal
morphology
(%) and true acrosome reaction (%) (p<0.05).
Results obtained from the sperm penetration assay demonstrated that the penetration index and penetration rate were increased significant (p<0.05) when the spermatozoa were incubated in TYB, as compared with swim-up method. And fertilization of
intact
human oocytes was more succesful when spermatozoa were pretreated with TYB at 4℃ for 48 hours as compared with swim-up method.
Our results show that TYB method have advantages in terms of enhancement of sperm hyperactivation, increased true acrosome reaction, increased ability to penetrate zona-free hamster ova and augmented fertilization of human oocytes, suggesting
that
TYB
is superior in its ability to preserve sperm motility and fertilizing ability.
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