Pre-Treatment of Swine Oviductal Epithelial Cells with Progesterone Increases the Sperm Fertilizing Ability in an IVF Model
Costanza Cimini,
Fadl Moussa,
Angela Taraschi,
Marina Ramal-Sanchez,
Alessia Colosimo,
Giulia Capacchietti,
Samia Mokh,
Luca Valbonetti,
Israiel Tagaram,
Nicola Bernabò,
Barbara Barboni
Affiliations
Costanza Cimini
Faculty of Biosciences and Technology for Food, Agriculture and Environment, University of Teramo, 64100 Teramo, Italy
Fadl Moussa
Faculty of Biosciences and Technology for Food, Agriculture and Environment, University of Teramo, 64100 Teramo, Italy
Angela Taraschi
Faculty of Biosciences and Technology for Food, Agriculture and Environment, University of Teramo, 64100 Teramo, Italy
Marina Ramal-Sanchez
Faculty of Biosciences and Technology for Food, Agriculture and Environment, University of Teramo, 64100 Teramo, Italy
Alessia Colosimo
Faculty of Biosciences and Technology for Food, Agriculture and Environment, University of Teramo, 64100 Teramo, Italy
Giulia Capacchietti
Faculty of Biosciences and Technology for Food, Agriculture and Environment, University of Teramo, 64100 Teramo, Italy
Samia Mokh
National Council for Scientific Research (CNRS), Lebanese Atomic Energy Commission (LAEC), Laboratory for Analysis of Organic Compound (LACO), Beirut 8281, Lebanon
Luca Valbonetti
Faculty of Biosciences and Technology for Food, Agriculture and Environment, University of Teramo, 64100 Teramo, Italy
Israiel Tagaram
Faculty of Biosciences and Technology for Food, Agriculture and Environment, University of Teramo, 64100 Teramo, Italy
Nicola Bernabò
Faculty of Biosciences and Technology for Food, Agriculture and Environment, University of Teramo, 64100 Teramo, Italy
Barbara Barboni
Faculty of Biosciences and Technology for Food, Agriculture and Environment, University of Teramo, 64100 Teramo, Italy
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 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.
