Combined use of fluorescent peanut agglutinin lectin and Hoechst 33258 to monitor the acrosomal status and vitality of human spermatozoa

Fluorescein-conjugated peanut agglutinin (PNA) lectin-labelling is an established procedure for assessing the status of the human sperm acrosome. However, unlike the triple-stain technique, PNA-labelling does not provide a simultaneous assessment of cellular vitality. We have therefore evaluated the use of the fluorescent dye Hoechst 33258 (H33258) as a vital stain for use in combination with PNA-labelling. Human sperm populations were stained for 1 min with 1 μg/ml H33258 in culture medium and then washed through 2.0 (w/v) polyvinylpyrollidone columns and air-dried onto microscope slides. H33258 was found to provide vitality assessments comparable to those obtained using the standard eosin-exclusion method. However, best results were obtained with an ethanol fixation step between air-drying and PNA-labelling. This vitality assessment was found to be more reliable than that provided by Trypan blue staining under conditions equivalent to the triple-stain technique. There was no alteration of PNA-labelling due to the H33258 although ethanol fixation actually provided more uniform PNA-labelling than previously obtained without ethanol fixation. Consequently, we have stopped using the triple-stain technique for assessing human sperm acrosome reactions and now use the H33258/PNA procedure routinely.