In situ reconstruction of humoral immune response against sperm: comparison of SCID and NOD/SCID mouse models.

PROBLEM: Comparison of two types of immunocompromised mouse strains (SCID and NOD/SCID) for production of human antisperm antibodies (AsA).

METHOD OF STUDY: Human peripheral blood lymphocytes (PBL) were grafted to mouse peritoneal cavity and sensitized with natively glycosylated and N-deglycosylated sperm extracts.

RESULTS AND

CONCLUSION

NOD/SCID mice inoculated with hu-PBLs exhibited higher AsA titres with a tendency for greater sperm agglutination than human AsA raised in SCID mouse model. A comparison between 'native' and deglycosylated sperm extracts revealed higher agglutination titres by sera induced with the latter ones. Inhibitory effect of human polyclonal AsA in sperm penetration assay, however, produced opposite results to that for agglutination. Western immunoblotting was used to evaluate reactive sperm antigens prior to and after in situ sensitization showing multiple bands different from positive reactions brought by original sera of in vivo primed AsA-positive males. It seems that in situ generated AsA recognized sperm entities different from those revealed by blood donor's sera samples.