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Pre-Treatment of Swine Oviductal Epithelial Cells with Progesterone Increases the Sperm Fertilizing Ability in an IVF Model

Authors :
Costanza Cimini
Fadl Moussa
Angela Taraschi
Marina Ramal-Sanchez
Alessia Colosimo
Giulia Capacchietti
Samia Mokh
Luca Valbonetti
Israiel Tagaram
Nicola Bernabò
Barbara Barboni
Source :
Animals, Vol 12, Iss 9, p 1191 (2022)
Publication Year :
2022
Publisher :
MDPI AG, 2022.

Abstract

Mammalian spermatozoa are infertile immediately after ejaculation and need to undergo a functional modification, called capacitation, in order to acquire their fertilizing ability. Since oviductal epithelial cells (SOECs) and progesterone (P4) are two major modulators of capacitation, here we investigated their impact on sperm functionality by using an IVF swine model. To that, we treated SOECs with P4 at 10, 100, and 1000 ng/mL before the coincubation with spermatozoa, thus finding that P4 at 100 ng/mL does not interfere with the cytoskeleton dynamics nor the cells’ doubling time, but it promotes the sperm capacitation by increasing the number of spermatozoa per polyspermic oocyte (p < 0.05). Moreover, we found that SOECs pre-treatment with P4 100 ng/mL is able to promote an increase in the sperm fertilizing ability, without needing the hormone addition at the time of fertilization. Our results are probably due to the downregulation in the expression of OVGP1, SPP1 and DMBT1 genes, confirming an increase in the dynamism of our system compared to the classic IVF protocols. The results obtained are intended to contribute to the development of more physiological and efficient IVF systems.

Details

Language :
English
ISSN :
20762615
Volume :
12
Issue :
9
Database :
Directory of Open Access Journals
Journal :
Animals
Publication Type :
Academic Journal
Accession number :
edsdoj.2c529888ca42b88efb9e7f4d859f08
Document Type :
article
Full Text :
https://doi.org/10.3390/ani12091191