Evaluation of immunological infertility using monoclonal antibody

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We demonstrated that serum obtained from an immunologic infertile woman induced head-to-head agglutination of human and rat sperm and interacted with human sperm proteins and rat testicular proteins. To collect sufficient amounts of semen from human subjects and rats is a difficult task. To circumvent this problem of supply, we decided to study boar sperm which is in abundant supply from the Livestock Experimental Station of Chiba Prefecture and the National Institute of Animal Industry. The serum induced a head-to-head agglutination of ejaculated boar sperm. The immunoglobulin G (IgG) prepared from the patient localized to the acrosomal region of the sperm head obtained from the corpus and cauda epididymis as determined by an indirect immunofluorescent method. The IgG interacted with a boar sperm protein with an estimated molecular weight of 45-kDa, determined by SDS-PAGE immunoblotting technique. However, the IgG did not interact with proteins extracted from sperm obtained from the testis and caput epididymis or from non-gonadal tissues. The IgG interacted with additional proteins of about 75- and 38-kDa present in the corpus and cauda epididymal fluids but not those in the caput epididymal fluid. The interacting proteins were adsorbed when chromatographed on Concanavalin A Sepharose column, suggesting that they are glycoproteins.A promising approach in the development of an antifertility vaccine is to study the effects of the boar sperm antigens as immunogens on the fertility of experimental animals.