{"id":910,"date":"2026-07-14T10:09:52","date_gmt":"2026-07-14T10:09:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/?p=910"},"modified":"2026-07-14T10:09:52","modified_gmt":"2026-07-14T10:09:52","slug":"scientists-abuzz-about-sperm-biomarkers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/?p=910","title":{"rendered":"Scientists Abuzz About Sperm Biomarkers"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Scientists<\/div>

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Spanish sperm specialists are about to shake up fertility research. In a study published in the scientific journal Cells<\/em> <\/a>this April, biologists working out of the University of the Basque Country\/EHU report that they have developed a new method that will allow investigators to access sperm biomarkers from men with low sperm counts<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Right now we judge sperm quality and fertility using rating systems like the WHO Manual for the Laboratory Examination and Processing of Human Semen. This guide helps fertility doctors to assess how fertile a man is based on the volume of his ejaculate, sperm count<\/a> concentration, sperm motility and shape. While these criteria give us a lot of information, they lack a vital piece of the data: What\u2019s going on under the hood? As PhD student Irune Calzado explains, \u2018A semen analysis lacks diagnostic and prognostic capabilities. Having normal values does not mean that a person is fertile.\u2019 Calzado and her colleagues believe that to get a true picture of how healthy a man\u2019s sperm are, we need to look at biomarkers.<\/p>\n

A Hard Nut to Crack<\/h2>\n

Biomarkers are a set of tell-tale signatures that turn up when cellular processes are not working as they should. According to Clazado If we want to find out why a man\u2019s sperm cells aren\u2019t doing well, or to discover better ways to improve the chances of conception<\/a>, investigating the engine driving these cells is the best path to take.<\/p>\n

The Basque researchers soon realized why we know so little about the molecular mechanics in sperm cells. They are tough. To make from one person to another, these cells have evolved to survive through all kinds of mechanical and environmental conditions. While this is an advantage to the existence of our species, it\u2019s a pain in the butt for cell biologists.<\/p>\n

The normal techniques we use to crack open a cell and gently collect its insides for analysis are too delicate to open a sperm cell. Usually scientists resort to tougher measures. They can get DNA out using strong detergents and salts, but in the process, a lot of the proteins and sugars that would help them to figure out what\u2019s wrong, are destroyed. This might be OK if a man has a sperm count of 200\u00a0million per ml of ejaculate, however, men suffering with infertility can have very low counts.<\/p>\n

Every Sperm Is Sacred<\/h2>\n

When you are investigating a small biological sample, every cell is precious. Clazado and her colleagues had to figure out not only how to break these cells open without losing the contents, but also to determine the minimum sperm sample size that will yield reliable results. What could fracture these tough cells in a test tube without using harsh chemicals or losing most of the sample<\/p>\n

The answer was sonication. This is a process that uses ultrasonic pulses to vibrate things very fast. Through a lot of trial and error, the team managed to vibrate the sperm samples just enough to break them open. They discovered that they needed to apply a long and strong (20 s at 75%) vibration to rupture the cells without destroying the proteins, sugars and lipids crucial to their investigation.<\/p>\n

After a lot of work, they finally managed to find the conditions that allowed them to get enough material to test from as little as 1.25\u00a0million sperm per millilitre. This sounds like a lot, but the sperm samples from healthy donors that they used to do the optimizations contained as many as 200\u00a0million per ml.<\/p>\n

Why Stop There?<\/h2>\n

This is not the end of the story. Once the researchers worked out how to get samples out of the sperm cells, they started their real investigation. The team used mass spectrometry to identify and quantify the lipids and metabolic molecules in a normal sperm sample. This information is the first step in a long-term project to figure out which lipids and metabolites are missing or over-represented in faulty sperm.<\/p>\n

Using HPLC-ESI-MS\/MS researchers managed to identify 473 distinct lipid varieties present in human sperm in a regular sample, with 85% of the coverage in a 1.25\u00a0million\/ml sample. When they turned their eyes to metabolic markers, the screen revealed 955 identifiable compounds from a 1.25\u00a0million\/ml sperm sample.<\/p>\n

Now that the researchers know they can reliably identify a huge range of compounds from a small sperm sample, they are ready to start looking for metabolic signatures. Their hope is that they can discern patterns in the biomarkers that doctors can use to spot healthy or unhealthy sperm. These biomarkers could also give clues about what is going wrong in these sperm cells.<\/p>\n

Calzado says, \u2018From now on, we will need to start to explore what happens to these metabolites in each disorder. We now need to find out what alterations patients with infertility have. For example, in some disorders, it is likely that certain lipids, or certain proteins, will not be found, or that there will be a larger or smaller quantity, and so on. All of that remains to be explored,\u2019<\/p>\n

The final word? \u2018This opens the door to providing these patients with a better diagnosis and treatment. We have taken an important step forward; the aim now is to search for the biomarkers for each disorder,\u2019<\/p>\n

Sources<\/h2>\n

Calzado I, Araolaza M, Albizuri M, et al. Lipidomic and Metabolomic Profiling on Low-Count Human Spermatozoa: A Robust and Reproducible Method for Untargeted HPLC-ESI-MS\/MS-Based Approach. Cells<\/em>. 2026;15(7):649. doi:10.3390\/cells15070649<\/a><\/p>\n

Developing a new methodology to identify biomarkers for male infertility. EurekAlert! Accessed June 28, 2026. https:\/\/www.eurekalert.org\/news-releases\/1133544<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Spanish sperm specialists are about to shake up fertility research. In a study published in the scientific journal Cells this April, biologists working out of the University of the Basque Country\/EHU report that they have developed a new method that will allow investigators to access sperm biomarkers from men with low sperm counts. Right now…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":911,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/medicalnewsbulletin.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/MNB-Scientists-Abuzz-About-Sperm-Biomarkers.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[1901,1903,1900,1902],"class_list":["post-910","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-health","tag-abuzz","tag-biomarkers","tag-scientists","tag-sperm"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/910","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=910"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/910\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/911"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=910"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=910"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=910"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}