Apoptotic M540 bodies present in human semen interfere with flow cytometry-assisted assessment of sperm DNA fragmentation and oxidation

BACKGROUND: The use of flow cytometry (FC) to evaluate sperm DNA fragmentation via deoxynucleotidyl transferase terminal fluorescein dUTP nick-end labeling (TUNEL) has shown inconsistencies compared with conventional fluorescent microscopic analyses. It has been hypothesized that the observed discrepancies could be attributed to the presence of apoptotic bodies that can be labeled with merocyanine 540, the so-called M540 bodies. In order to verify this hypothesis and determine the accuracy of our in-house FC-assisted evaluation of spermatozoa parameters, we used FC to evaluate both the fragmentation of sperm DNA using the TUNEL assay and the oxidation of sperm DNA using the 8-OHdG assay on semen samples with or without M540 bodies. RESULTS: We show that the presence of M540 bodies lead to underestimation of both the level of sperm DNA fragmentation and sperm DNA oxidation when using FC assisted detection systems. We also observed that this situation is particularly pertinent in semen samples classified as abnormal with respect to the routine WHO semen evaluation as they appear to contain more M540 bodies than normal samples. CONCLUSIONS: We conclude that M540 bodies interfere with both FC-conducted assays designed to evaluate sperm nuclear/DNA integrity. Exclusion of these contaminants in unprepared semen samples should be performed in order to correctly appreciate the true level of sperm DNA/nuclear damage which is known to be a critical male factor for reproductive success. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12610-021-00143-7.