Investigation of sperm protamination in varicocele cases

It is known that semen analysis parameters do not fully explain the cause of infertility in the diagnosis of male factor infertility. Sperm protamination occurs in the late haploid phase of spermatogenesis, replacing protamines and protamines that pack the DNA with the formation of arginine-rich nucleus protein and providing sperm DNA stabilization, condensation. sperm DNA fragmentation, varicocele diagnosis and normospermia.In our study, the study was submitted to the 'Biruni University Olmayan Non-Interventional Ethics Committee for the examination of sperm protamination in normospermia and varicocele cases and approval of the ethics committee dated 24.01.2019 and numbered 2019 / 25-18. The study was performed between January-June 2019 in Biruni University Hospital for spermiogram analysis.In this study; Normospermia (n: 22) and varicocele (n: 22) patients who applied to Biruni University Hospital, standard semen analysis according to WHO criteria, sperm maturation with acidic aniline blue staining method and sperm DNA fragmentation damage with acridine orange staining method, chromomycin A3 staining In this study, weak chromatin packaging of sperm samples that were positive by protamines was examined and varicocele cases were compared with control cases. Normospermia and varicocele group were compared; sperm motility was significantly lower in varicocele cases (p = 0.004). Histonepositive sperm ratio was higher in varicocele cases. Sperm DNA fragmentation was found to be higher in varicocele cases (p = 0.000). Sperm normal morphology rate was lower in varicocele cases compared to control group (p = 0.004).In conclusion, sperm maturation was affected and DNA fragmentation was increased in varicocele cases. Negative effects of temperature increase on testis were observed in these cases where testicular temperature increased. It was also confirmed that chromatin condensation, ie sperm maturation, showed similar results with two separate tests.