Background: The changes that occur in the female reproductive tract during the menstrual cycle and in early pregnancy, in preparation for embryo implantation and subsequent placental and fetal development, have long attracted the interest of reproductive biologists. The early embryo expresses growth factors and receptors that are, in general, temporally expressed. In addition, the oviduct and uterine also synthesize growth factors and cytokines. A growth factor is naturally occurring substance capable of stimulating cellular growth, proliferation, healing, and cellular differentiating. Growth factors are important for regulating a variety of cellular processes. As with many other tissues, different growth factors like the CSFs, VEGF, LIF, MSTN and BMPs seem to have major effect on the female reproductive tract growth particularly fallopian tubes. Fallopian tube is a part of female reproductive tract in which fertilization, sperm preservation, capacitation and so on usually occurs.Objective: The aim of current research is to investigate the influence DNA fragmentation index (DFI) of sperm on the expression of different growth factors.Materials and Methods:
Sperm samples from 10 donors with normal features were collected and classified to two groups of normal and abnormal DFI. The extent of sperm DNA fragmentation, which measured by the TUNEL assay. The third group was fallopian tube cells without sperm. Finally, different sperms were co-incubated with fallopian tube cells for 24h. PCR array was performed to evaluate of growth factor genes expression profiling. We analyzed gene expression of CSF1, CSF 2, CSF 3, VEGF, LIF, MSTN, LIF, BMP2, BMP4, BMP6 and BMP7 among growth factor genes. In addition, this data was validated by q-PCR.Results: The results of the data analysis indicated that the fallopian tube expresses the growth factors. It was also observed that the expression of some growth factors in the vicinity of sperm significantly changes. The data shows that the expression of growth factors was not significantly different between normal and abnormal sperm groups. However, their expression was lower than the control group. In contrast with these genes, BMPs had higher expression in the sperm groups.Conclusion: The results of this study indicate that the fallopian tube reacts to sperm presence, and by changing the expression of growth factors can be effective in maintaining the function of sperm and protecting the fallopian tube.
Sperm with abnormal DFI can causes excessive Stimulation of the fallopian tube and different expression of these growth factors compared to normal DFI may lead to changes in reproductive activity. It seems that the findings of this research can be considered in the process of assisted reproductive technic and bring better results.