[Herpes simplex virus and cytomegalovirus in male ejaculate: herpes simplex virus is more frequently encountered in idiopathic infertility and correlates with the reduction in sperm parameters].

The present investigation was undertaken to study the detection rate of herpes simplex virus (HSV) and cytomegalovirus (CMV) in the ejaculates of males with infertility and to evaluate the impact of virus infection on the major parameters of sperm. Ejaculates from 808 patients were studied. As compared with apparently healthy individuals, the coupled males with primary infertility were found to have HSV more frequently in both the whole ejaculate (31% versus 17%; p = 0.049) and the fraction of actively motile spermatozoa (30% versus 8%; p = 0.016). Ejaculate HSV detection directly correlated with the reduced amount of actively motile spermatozoa (p = 0.0001) and the smaller proportion of morphologically normal forms of germ cells (p = 0.002). CMV was found to have no impact on the motility and morphology of spermatozoids in the ejaculate. Both HSV and CMV in the male ejaculate were significantly more frequently detectable in winter months. The findings lead to the conclusion that HSV is one of the factors for male infertility and can negatively affect the results of assisted reproductive technologies.

[Mixed monolayers of amphiphile-modified nucleic bases and diynoic acids. I. Phase states at air-water interface and in Langmuir-Blodgett films]. / Smeshannye monosloi amfifil'nykh proizvodnykh azotistykh osnovanii i diinovykh kislot. I. Fazovoe sostoianie na granitse voda-vozdukh i v plenkakh Lengmiura-Blodzhett.

Monolayers of amphiphile-modified nucleic bases with diynoic acid were obtained and characterized. The synthesized nucleic bases contained in the monolayer complementarily bind the nucleotide molecules contained in the aqueous subphase, and the structure of the resulting monolayers can be fixed by the photopolymerization of diynoic acid. The resulting monolayer exemplifies a novel type of model systems for investigating molecular recognition at the surface of biological membranes. Procedures for the transfer of the monolayers onto solid substrates and photopolymerization of the diynoic acid in mixtures with the derivatives of nucleic bases were developed. The films obtained were structurally characterized using atomic force microscopy. Compression isotherms of the mixed monolayers as well as individual components of monolayers at the air-water interface allowed one to determine the concentration range at which the diynoic acid form true mixtures or domain structures with the derivatives of nucleic base. A study of the films transferred to the solid substrate by atomic force microscopy indicated that this concentration dependence of miscibility behavior was conserved in the transferred films.

[Permeabilization of cell membrane by programmed form of electrical pulses]. / Permeabilizatsiia kletochnykh membran élektricheskimi impul'sami programmiruemoi formy.

The role of the shape of electric pulses of cell permeabilization and lysis was studied using the newly developed DPS electroporator. The effects of bipolar pulses, steep rising and falling edges in the pulses, delays between pulses, and shapes of DC signals between the edges on the lysis of bovine oocytes and the permeabilization of their cell membranes were investigated. Comparing the permeabilization rates with the lysis rates revealed a number of correlations, which make it possible to optimize the pulse shapes for achieving maximum permeabilization rates while keeping the lysis rates low. The optimization of pulse shape is essential for improving the procedure of electroporation in mammalian cloning technology.

[Cell membrane electroporator with digital generation of random shaped pulses]. / Elektroporator kletochnykh membran s tsifrovoi generatsiei impul'sov proizvol'noi formy.

A Digital Poration System (DPS), a versatile device for electrotreatment of biological objects by electric field pulses; was designed, constructed, and implemented. A feature distinguishing DPS from the currently available electroporators based on capacitor discharge through the load is the use of a digital-to-analog converter card as a generator of pulses applied for electroporation of biological membranes, with further amplification of the pulse by both voltage and current. The shape of pulses, including bipolar pulses, is arbitrarily programmable in DPS unlike other electroporators providing exponentially decaying and square-wave pulses only. Thus, the application area of DPS is substantially extended. In DPS, many of the drawbacks inherent in capacitor electroporators are removed, including the need for an additional external pulse analyzer monitoring and logging the electroporation processes, the necessity to recharge the capacitor before any new pulse, a poor precision of setting and measuring the pulse parameters, the need for an additional generator of long-lasting low-voltage signals for electrophoresis of ions into the porated object, the need for additional AC generators for the alignment of cells before, after, and during electroporation, and the need for an additional microprocessor to control multi-pulse and/or repetitive protocols. DPS provides a slew rate of about 1 V/1 ns required for the electroporation of most mammalian somatic cells, with +/- 250 V output voltage and 500 Ohm load resistance. The application area of DPS is much wider than for the available porators. It includes electrochemotherapy, cell electrofusion, oocyte activation by mimicking calcium waves (the latter two are the crucial components of mammalian organism cloning technology), dielectrophoretic bunching and orientation ordering of cells, sorting of cells, and electrophoresis of charged species into the cells.