Evaluation on Sensitivity of the Human Sperm Motility Assay for Detecting Endotoxin in Culture Mediu

Objective To investigate the sensitivity of the human sperm motility assay for detecting endotoxin in culture medium Materials & Methods Motile sperm were separated and exposed to different concentrations of endotoxin (0.5 ng/mL, 1 ng/mL, 10 ng/mL, 1 000 ng/mL, 10 000 ng/mL, and 50 000 ng/mL), and sperm motility was determined after incubation. Effects of endotoxin on sperm motility in media without albumin were also examined. In addition, at the same concentrations of endotoxin (0.5 ng/mL, 1 ng/mL, and 10 ng/mL), the sensitivity of the human sperm motility assay was compared to those of 1-cell and 2-cell mouse embryo bioassays.Results At levels of 0.5 ng/mL～1 000 ng/mL endotoxin in media with 2 mg/mL albumin, sperm did not show significant change in motility during 24 h of incubation when compared with the control (P>0.05). However, the sperm motility was significantly inhibited at endotoxin dosages of 10 000 and 50 000 ng/mL. In the absence of albumin supplementation, at endotoxin levels of 50 000 ng/mL, and 1 000 ng/mL, there was a marked decrease in sperm motility compared with the control after 2 h or 8 h of incubation, respectively (P