title: Comparative study on the use of human follicular fluid or egg yolk medium to enhance the performance of human sperm in the zona-free hamster oocyte penetration assay.
abstract: A prospective study was conducted on 61 unselected semen samples from infertile patients to compare the efficacy of human follicular fluid (hFF) or TEST-egg yolk medium treatment in enhancing sperm performance in the zona-free hamster oocyte penetration (HOP) test. Both hFF and TEST-egg yolk enhanced penetration scores significantly in the HOP test in comparison with the control swim-up sperm preparation. The TEST-egg yolk medium treatment, however, exhibited the highest penetration scores, and there were higher percentages of preparations passing the 10 or 20% penetration rate cut-off point with sperm exposed to the TEST-egg yolk medium than those exposed to hFF. These results indicate that modification of the original HOP-test protocol by incorporation of TEST-egg yolk medium gives a greatly increased penetration rate when compared to the addition of hFF in such a system.
authors.affiliation: Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Los Angeles, California 90048.
authors.forename: S Y
authors.initials: SY
authors.lastname: Chan
authors.forename: M J
authors.initials: MJ
authors.lastname: Tucker
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001331:Automation; D006224:Cricetinae; D004530:Egg Yolk; D005260:Female; D005307:Fertilization in Vitro; D015571:Follicular Fluid; D006801:Humans; D007248:Infertility, Male / Q000175:diagnosis*; D008297:Male; D009845:Oligospermia / Q000175:diagnosis; D009865:Oocytes; D011446:Prospective Studies; D012044:Regression Analysis; D013094:Spermatozoa; D015044:Zona Pellucida