Although the importance of seminal plasma in the protection of spermatozoa against reactive oxygen species is well known, only a few studies have investigated its antioxidative properties and the possible relationship between infertility and plasmatic antioxidant defences. The aim of the present study was to assess the status of the total non-enzymatic antioxidant defences of human seminal plasma. Semen samples were obtained from 101 patients consulting for infertility and 15 fertile donors. A total reactive antioxidant potential (TRAP) in seminal plasma was determined by luminol-chemiluminescence. The relationship of seminal TRAP values to lipid peroxidation was also evaluated. Our results show that semen samples from fertile controls show total antioxidant capacity at higher frequency and value than equivalent samples from suspected subfertile men. This fact as well as the inverse relationship observed between antioxidant capacity and lipid peroxidation potential strongly suggest that impaired antioxidant defences may play a role in Infertile disorders.

We studied the variability of traditional semen analysis parameters as well as sperm motion characteristics analyzed by computer-assisted-semen analyzer in semen and after 2 hours of incubation in capacitation conditions. Twenty men with probed fertility provided three semen samples and 60 men provide one. The higher variability was observed with seminal sperm concentration, the lower variation was observed for percent motility and percent of normal morphology. Ten Oligospermic donors (12,5%) were observed in our population without other semen parameters abnormalities. Their motion characteristics were comparable to cells analyzed from normospermic men. A lower variability of sperm motion characteristics was observed during sperm capacitation compared to sperm movement in seminal plasma; suggesting that sperm motion characteristics during capacitation may be a usefull method additional to semen analysis to evaluate male fertility potential.