The Impact of Lifestyle on Sperm Telomere Length and Telomerase Activity in Men Undergoing IVF Treatments

Hillel Yaffe Medical Center

Status: Enrolling

Conditions: Male Infertility

Treatments: Other: DNeasy Tissue Kit (QIAGEN Inc., Mississauga, Ontario, Canada) and PCR- based assay (TRAPeze Telomerase Detection Kit; Millipore, Billerica, MA).

Study type: Observational

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT04158765

0120-18-HYMC

Details and patient eligibility

About

This aim of this study is to determine the impact of lifestyle on telomere length and telomerase enzyme activity on sperm cells of men undergoing IVF treatments.

Full description

Following approval of the study by the Hospital Ethical Committee (Helsinki), semen samples and blood will be collected from infertile individuals referred to our IVF unit at Hillel Yaffe Medical Center. Informed written consent will be obtained from each participant. Standard semen analysis will be carried out according to World Health Organization protocol. An aliquot of semen sample will be used for assessment of sperm motility, concentration, and morphology by using computer-aided sperm analysis (CASA) and the remaining sample will be used for assessment of sperm telomere lengths and telomerase activity. Genomic DNA will be extracted from the remaining washed sperm and peripheral blood. Sperm telomere length will be determined by real-time polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR) and telomerase activity will be determined by TRAP assay (Telomeric Repeat Amplification Protocol).

Enrollment: 100 estimated patients

Sex: Male

Ages: 18 to 60 years old

Volunteers: Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• Infertile couple

Exclusion criteria

• Chronic disease
• Azoospermia

Trial design

100 participants in 1 patient group

Infertile men

Description:

Men with altered spermograms (isolated teratozoospermia or oligo-astheno-teratozoospermia)

Treatment:

Other: DNeasy Tissue Kit (QIAGEN Inc., Mississauga, Ontario, Canada) and PCR- based assay (TRAPeze Telomerase Detection Kit; Millipore, Billerica, MA).