Body mass index effects sperm quality: a retrospective study in Northern China.

Excess weight and obesity have become a serious problem in adult men of reproductive age throughout the world. The purpose of this retrospective study was to assess the relationships between body mass index and sperm quality in subfertile couples in a Chinese Han population. Sperm analyses were performed and demographic data collected from 2384 male partners in subfertile couples who visited a reproductive medical center for treatment and preconception counseling. The subjects were classified into four groups according to their body mass index: underweight, normal, overweight, and obese. Of these subjects, 918 (38.3%) had a body mass index of >25.0 kg m-0 2 . No significant differences were found between the four groups with respect to age, occupation, level of education, smoking status, alcohol use, duration of sexual abstinence, or the collection time of year for sperm. The results clearly indicated lower sperm quality (total sperm count, sperm concentration, motile sperm, relative amounts of type A motility, and progressive motility sperm [A + B]) in overweight and obese participants than in those with normal body mass index. Normal sperm morphology and sperm volume showed no clear difference between the four groups. This study indicates that body mass index has a negative effect on sperm quality in men of subfertile couples in a Northern Chinese population. Further study should be performed to investigate the relationship between body mass index and sperm quality in a larger population.

Blastocoele expansion degree predicts live birth after single blastocyst transfer for fresh and vitrified/warmed single blastocyst transfer cycles.

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the independent effects of the degree of blastocoele expansion and re-expansion and the inner cell mass (ICM) and trophectoderm (TE) grades on predicting live birth after fresh and vitrified/warmed single blastocyst transfer. DESIGN: Retrospective study. SETTING: Reproductive medical center. PATIENT(S): Women undergoing 844 fresh and 370 vitrified/warmed single blastocyst transfer cycles. INTERVENTION(S): None. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURE(S): Live-birth rate correlated with blastocyst morphology parameters by logistic regression analysis and Spearman correlations analysis. RESULT(S): The degree of blastocoele expansion and re-expansion was the only blastocyst morphology parameter that exhibited a significant ability to predict live birth in both fresh and vitrified/warmed single blastocyst transfer cycles respectively by multivariate logistic regression and Spearman correlations analysis. Although the ICM grade was significantly related to live birth in fresh cycles according to the univariate model, its effect was not maintained in the multivariate logistic analysis. In vitrified/warmed cycles, neither ICM nor TE grade was correlated with live birth by logistic regression analysis. CONCLUSION(S): This study is the first to confirm that the degree of blastocoele expansion and re-expansion is a better predictor of live birth after both fresh and vitrified/warmed single blastocyst transfer cycles than ICM or TE grade.

Progesterone elevation on the day of human chorionic gonadotropin administration adversely affects the outcome of IVF with transferred embryos at different developmental stages.

BACKGROUND: The effect of progesterone elevation (PE) on the day of human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG) administration on the pregnancy outcomes of in vitro fertilization/intracytoplasmic sperm injection (IVF/ICSI) cycles is a matter of ongoing debate. The replacement of cleavage-stage embryos with blastocyst-stage embryos for transfer was proposed to avoid the possible impairment of PE in fresh cycles. This study aimed to assess the association between PE on the day of human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG) administration and clinical pregnancy rates (CPRs) in IVF/ICSI cycles with embryos transferred at different developmental stages (cleavage and blastocyst). Moreover, a secondary aim was to determine the thresholds at which PE has a detrimental effect on CPRs. METHODS: This single-center retrospective cohort study included more than 10,000 patients undergoing day 3 cleavage-stage embryo transfer (ET) and 1146 patients undergoing day 5 blastocyst-stage embryo transfer (ET) using gonadotropin and GnRH agonist for controlled ovarian stimulation. RESULTS: Serum PE was inversely associated with CPRs in both cleavage- and blastocyst-stage ET cycles. In the day 3 ET cycles, CPRs (progesterone levels < 0.5 ng/ml, 49.2 %) significantly declined when the progesterone concentration reached 1.0 ng/ml (45.5 %) and decreased further when the progesterone concentration increased to 1.5 ng/ml (36.2 %). In the day 5 blastocyst-stage ET cycles, patients with serum progesterone levels ≥1.75 ng/ml had significantly lower CPRs (31.3 % VS. 41.4 %, p < 0.001) compared to patients with serum progesterone levels <1.75 ng/ml. The negative association of PE with CPRs was noted in both ET groups, even after adjusting for confounders. Furthermore, the developmental stage of the transferred embryos was not linked to the effect of PE on CPRs because the interaction between the developmental stage of the transferred embryos and PE was not significant. CONCLUSIONS: PE on the day of hCG administration is associated with decreased CPRs in GnRH agonist IVF/intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI) cycles regardless of the developmental stage of the transferred embryos (cleavage versus blastocyst stage).

[Study on the ultraviolet protective effects of the cream of the total flavonoids from Oxytropis falcata].

OBJECTIVE: To study the protective effects of the cream of the total flavonoids from Oxytropis falcata on the destructed skin of mice induced by moderate-wave ultraviolet (UVB) irradiation. METHODS: Dorsal skin of Wistar mice were treated with the cream of the total flavonoids from Oxytropis falcata and then irradiated with UVB in the dosage of 5 min once a day for one week. The tissue of skin was pathological diagnosed and the activities or contents of superoxide dismutase (SOD), malondialdehyde (MDA), hydroxyproline (Hyp), glutathione peroxidease (GSH-Px), glutathione (GSH), glutathion-s-transferase (GST), catalase (CAT) and hydroxy radical (*OH) were determined with chromatometry. RESULTS: The ultraviolet protective effects of the cream could be observed with appearance and pathology examine. The cream could increase the activities of SOD (P < 0.001), GSH-Px (P < 0.001), GST (P < 0.05) and CAT (P < 0.01), raise the content of Hyp (P < 0.001) significantly. The cream could also decrease the contents of MDA and *OH (P < 0.001), and the activities of GSH significantly (P < 0.001). CONCLUSION: The cream of the total flavonoids from Oxytropis falcata has protective effect on the destructed skin of mice induced by moderate-wave ultraviolet (UVB) irradiation.

Recombinant bivalent vaccine against foot-and-mouth disease virus serotype O/A infection in guinea pig.

In this study, two DNA fragments encoding amino acid (141-160)-(21-140)-(141-160) of the VP1 of FMDV (foot-and-mouth disease virus) serotype O and (138-160)-(21-40)-(138-160) of the serotype A FMDV were chemically synthesized. These two tandem-repeat fragments were ligated and transfected into prokaryotic expression vector pTrcHis A to construct pTH-O-A. The other vector called pTH-O-scIgG-A was constructed similarly only that the two tandem-repeat DNA fragments were linked by the bovine-IgG heavy chain coding sequence. Guinea pigs immunized with the two bivalent vaccines pTH-O-A and pTH-O-scIgG-A showed both specific antibody activity and T cell proliferation responses. FMDV challenge tests showed that 85% and 70% of guinea pigs vaccinated twice with 200 mg of the fusion protein of pTH-O-A were protected from FMDV serotype O and serotype A infection respectively. 70% and 57% of the guinea pigs immunized with the fusion protein of pTH-O-scIgG-A were protected from FMDV serotype O and serotype A infection respectively.