Sperm Biology: Towards Understanding Global Issue of Male Infertility

Review Article

Austin Andrology. 2016; 1(1): 1003.

Sperm Biology: Towards Understanding Global Issue of Male Infertility

Rahman MS* and Pang MG

Laboratory of Reproductive Physiology and Modulation, Department of Animal Science and Technology, Chung- Ang University, Anseong, Korea

*Corresponding author: Md Saidur Rahman, Department of Animal Science and Technology, Chung- Ang University, 4726 Seodong-daero, Anseong, Korea

Received: May 09, 2016; Accepted: June 29, 2016; Published: July 04, 2016

Editorial

With a steadily increasing world population, infertility and sub fertility have been distressed a significant proportion of humanity. The emotional impact of infertility has been described via several clinical observations. Up to half of all infertile couples, male infertility plays a critical role, and in some cases, the causes of infertility remain unknown. Recent progress towards understanding male infertility has been demonstrated that quality and quantity of spermatozoa are one of the leading causes of infertility. Since sperm’s ability to fertilize an oocyte is largelya molecular biochemical event; in-depth understanding of sperm biology could provide useful guidelines for clinicians and researchers to sustain patient’s hope. In this review, we discussed some basic events in spermatozoa that confer its ability for fertilization, which need to be understood in order to answer the global issue of male infertility.

Keywords: Infertility; Spermatozoa; Motility; Capacitation; Acrosome Reaction; Fertilization

Introduction

Infertility of both male and female has become a global concern [1] because approximately 15% of couples are suffering from this problem and around 50% cases male partner of a couple is responsible for not having any child. Based on the review of existing literature, Agrawal et al. [2] have reported an alarming percentage of male factors infertility across the globe (Figure 1). One of the common causes of male infertility is the abnormality of spermatozoa [1,2]. Some preliminary studies have suggested that sperm counts and motility are the major factors of male infertility [1-3]. However, results of most recent studies indicated that men with very low sperm counts and motility sometimes may have babies and vice versa [4-6]. Therefore, the ability of spermatozoa to fertilize an oocyte is mainly a biochemical event at the molecular level that needs to be understood in order to answer the global concern of male infertility.