Treatment of spermagglutination with proteolytic enzymes. I. Sperm motility, vitality, longevity and successful disagglutination.

The treatment of antibody-mediated spermagglutination by corticosteroid therapy has a high incidence of side-effects and sperm washing is often followed by re-agglutination. The possibility of enzymatic disagglutination was therefore investigated. In the first part of the study the effects of four proteases on sperm motility, vitality and longevity were evaluated. Subtilisin had prohibitively detrimental effects even at 10 U/ml. However, chymotrypsin (less than or equal to 500 U/ml), trypsin (less than or equal to 500 U/ml) and papain (less than or equal to 50 U/ml) had no adverse effects. In the second series of experiments one or more of these latter three enzymes was found to disagglutinate spermatozoa which had previously been incubated with sperm-agglutinating antibody-positive sera in 87% of cases. Although further investigation is required, enzymatic disagglutination may be beneficial for the treatment of immunologically mediated spermagglutination.