Fig. 3.

Microscopic images of typical sperm nuclear decondensation observed for patients with normal, or abnormal SDD Test scores, after 15 min incubations in egg extract. All images are at the same magnification: Bar = 15 microns. Panel a: Permeabilized negative control sperm from a fertile male at Time 0, before mixing with egg extract. Panel b: Fully decondensed (FD) negative control sperm nuclei after a 15 min incubation in egg extract where 97.9 % of the sperm nuclei were fully decondensed. This is representative of the fully decondensed sperm nuclei observed when scoring patients’ found to have normal SDD Test scores. Panel c: Microscopic images of sperm from a patient with an SDD Test score = 62.0 % of the negative control with fully decondensed sperm nuclei after a 15 min incubation in egg extract. Thirty eight percent of this patient’s sperm nuclei had either no decondensation (ND) or partial decondensation (PD)