ORIGINAL ARTICLE Andrology Neutralization of ASC improves sperm motility in men with spinal cord injury

studyquestion: Does neutralization of apoptosis-associated speck-like protein containing a caspase activation and recruitment domain (ASC) improve sperm motility in men with spinal cord injury (SCI)? summaryanswer: Neutralization of ASC improves sperm motility in men with SCI. what is known already: Semen of men with SCI contains normal sperm concentrations but abnormally low sperm motility. Inflammatory cytokines, activated via the inflammasome complex, are contributory. A key component of the inflammasome is ASC. study design, size, duration: This prospective study included semen samples collected from 32 men with SCI. participants/materials, setting, methods: At a major university medical center, untreated semen was compared with semen treated with anti-ASC polyclonal antibody. Semen treated with IgG was used as a control. main results and the role of chance: Addition of anti-ASC polyclonal antibody to semen significantly increased mean sperm motility from 11.5 % (95 % CI, 6.3–16.7) to 18.3 % (95 % CI, 11.8–24.8). Improvements were most pronounced in the subgroup whose starting motility ranged between 6 and 40%. In this subgroup, the mean sperm motility improved from 13.3 % (95 % CI, 9.3–17.3) to 23.9% (95 % CI, 14.7–23.0). Sperm motility did not improve after treatment with IgG. limitations, reasons for caution: This study is limited by the small sample size as this is a rare population. wider implications of the findings: Blockade of the inflammasome via treatment with anti-ASC improved sperm motility in men with SCI. In doing so, this treatment significantly increased their total motile sperm count. This is the first study to demonstrate tha