[Malformed macrocephalous sperm with polytails and chromosomal aberrance].
OBJECTIVE
To investigate the relationship between sperm anomalies and chromosomal aberrance and to further understand the pathological changes of anomalous spermatozoa.


METHODS
Light and electronic (SEM or TEM) microscopes were used for morphological analysis. Fluorescence in situ hybridization(FISH) with chromosome X-, Y-specific probes were used for aneuploidy detection in sperms of the patient.


RESULTS
Ninety eight point seven five per cent of the Papanicolaou stained sperms were observed to be abnormal; 100% of the sperm heads were abnormal, measured under oil objective (1000 times); 60.25% of the sperms had two or more tails (the maximum being eight tails). SEM and TEM demonstrated that the heads contained a large amount of cytoplasmic structure, the surfaces of heads were uneven, the nuclei were of much irregular shape; besides aberrance in quantity, anomalies occurred with centromeres, mitochondria and flagella in the tails. The results of FISH showed that the aneuploidy rate of sex chromosomes was 61.41% which was parallel to the rate of polytails.


CONCLUSIONS
Even though the chromosomes in somatic cells are normal, the chromosomes in anomalous sperms may be abnormal.
Fan
L
L
The Human Reproductive Engineering Department and Laboratory of Electronic Microscopy, the Hunan Medical University, Changsha, Hunan, 410078 P.R. China. fanlq@public.cs.hn.cn
Zhu
W
W
Zeng
Q
Q
Tan
Y
Y
Lou
K
K
Lu
G
G
D000328:Adult; D000782:Aneuploidy; D002869:Chromosome Aberrations; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D012730:Sex Chromosomes; D013094:Spermatozoa / Q000002:abnormalities* / Q000648:ultrastructure