Effect of coenzyme Q10 on motility, viability, morphology, DNA fragmentation, and protamine level of sperm after freezing human semen

Background and Objective: sperm freezing influences fertility, motility, morphology, and viability of sperm. Addition of antioxidant supplementation to sperm culture media has beneficial effects on the outcome of assisted reproduction. Antioxidants have long been utilized in the management of male subfertility as they can counterbalance the elevated levels of ROS inducing a high state of OS to evaluate the effects of adding different doses of antioxidant Q10 on sperm parameters before and after freezing human semen. Materials and Methods: Normozoospermic semen samples were obtained from 50individuals being screened for fertility at the infertility treatment center of Besat hospital, Sanandaj, Iran. After liquefaction of the sample at incubator (37 °C), semen analysis using World Health Organization criteria (WHO, 1993) was performed. Findings: Treating fresh sperm with antioxidant Q10 did not have a significant effect on sperm parameters. The freezing process brought about a decrease in quality of sperm parameters. However, after different doses of antioxidant Q10 were used in the freezing medium, there was a significant improvement in the motility of the sperm samples in all three doses compared with freezing control group(P<0.05), and this improvement was more in the motility of the 100 mM Q10 group. Increased viability of sperm and decreased DNA segmentation after freezing were obtained only by adding antioxidant Q10 with does 100 mM (P<0.05). By adding antioxidant Q10 with doses of 100 and 150 mM improved protamine deficiency of the frozen sperm (P<0.05). Different doses of antioxidant Q10 has no effect on sperm morphology factor after freezing.Conclusion: Adding antioxidant Q10 improved motility, viability, DNA fragmentation and protamine deficiency of the frozen sperm.

Keywords:

Coenzyme Q10 , Spermatozoa , Semen , DNA fragmentation , fertility