Correlation Between Erp57 And The Pregnancy Of Intrauterine Insemination

Assisted reproductive technology is a very important resolvent to infertility, among which intrauterine insemination (IUI) has been widely used. In its clinical application, we found that some donored sperm hardly impregnated fertile females, which lead to a waste of time and money and caused great psycological burden on patients. To solve this problem, researchers are now in great effort to look for biomarkers which can predict the outcome of IUI. The present study focused on sperm antigen ERp57, which was previously reported to be associated with pregnancy rate of IVF.Objective: To investigate the association between the pregnancy rate of intrauterine insemination (IUI) and ERp57 expression level in donor sperm.Methods: 42 sperm samples were divided into three groups according to the pregnancy rate: the pregnancy rate of Group A: 0, (n = 16); the pregnancy rate of Group B 10% - 20%, (n = 13); the pregnancy rate of Group C:≥20% (n = 13). Results: The ERp57 expression level was significantly lower in Group A than that in Group B and C (P < 0.05). No significant difference was observed between Group B and C.Conclusion: ERp57 expression level in donor sperm could be used as an index to predict the pregnancy rate of IUI, and to avoid the IUI failure by removing the donor sperm with low ERp57 level.